


Unexpected Fire

by LadyRimouski



Series: Forging Fate [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action & Romance, But it happens organically; I swear, F/M, First Time, Fuck Or Die, Marriage of Convenience, Medical Mystery, Porn with Feelings, Reader as scientist, Smut, Virgin Reader, Virgin Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-01-18 22:53:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12397920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRimouski/pseuds/LadyRimouski
Summary: You're proud of the important scientific work you're doing in the post-Incident world, then what starts out as a disaster turns into something beautiful, as fate throws you and Steve Rogers together.Through the gloom and dust, you see the debris start to move. A powerful forearm reaches through and grips the largest beam, the barrier to your escape. With a bellow of effort, the beam rises; underneath it is Captain America, clad in his tactical red-white-and-blue.Note: This begins a series, but it does stand alone as a complete story-line.





	1. Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> The idea that just wouldn't let go until I got it in writing.

It started as a relatively routine day.

You had headed out to do an evaluation of an incident site. Having run your department at Damage Control for almost five years now, it was almost becoming habitual: do a site assessment, take samples and readings, and come up with an environmental remediation plan. You hadn't been expecting your life to turn out like this. During your studies, you chose eco-toxicology and exo-biology to specialise in, never expecting to find any practical work in your field. And then _The_ Incident had made your research urgently relevant. You'd found you possessed a previously undiscovered aptitude for triageing potential ecological crises, and that had made you indispensable at Damage Control. Now, you found yourself working regularly with the Avengers Organization, keeping an eye on invasive species (aliens in both senses of the word) and healing some ecological and human-health after-effects of whatever the universe had thrown at the Earth lately.

As you arrived on site with your team, you were joined by Anna Kabalevsky, an elderly Russian woman who served as the Avengers' personal physician, and was also an expert in enhanced physiology. You often worked together teasing out potential threats from the often unpredictable chemical soup left in the aftermath of a battle with some reckless villain.

Yesterday’s havok had unearthed an underground lab... some amateur's idea of a secret lair. They never got far before their own hubris caught them out. As the engineers finished stabilizing the wrecked facility, you and Anna made your way to the main lab, and began cataloguing the unknown chemicals arrayed in colourful jars on the shelves lining the walls around the lab benches. Some of them would be easy enough to deal with: containment and removal to a safe site for identification and disposal. Others made you a little more nervous. The lead-encased cryo-chamber, nested in two layers of biosecurity doors was going to be a problem. But it could wait. The inbuilt lab safeguards were holding, and the drones would not have cleared the facility if the damage to the facility put them at risk of failing spontaneously.

As you worked your way around the room, tagging various items with removal instructions for your team, you heard the tell-tale sound of repulsors that meant that Tony Stark was making a site visit, in his Iron Man suit. Besides bankrolling Damage Control, and contributing his mental genius towards particularly tricky engineering problems as they turned up, he also liked to put in an appearance on-site every now and then. He was happy enough to delegate most of the time, but the almost manic engineer liked to keep tabs on certain cleanups. You suspected it was to reassure himself that the Department was actually making a difference, and that he wasn't just throwing money at the problem to assuage his conscience. No matter his motivation, you were always glad to see him on site. He often saw ingenious ways of resolving convoluted problems, and always followed through with action on the subject soon after.

“Morning, ladies” he quipped, nodding in your and Anna’s direction. “Got any jars of pickles that need opening?”

“I sure hope there’s nothing pickling in these jars” you replied back. Anna just nodded bemusedly in his direction.

You briefed Tony on the state of things, and he settled in to the task at hand, smoothly retracting his suit into a portable case, and rolling up his sleeves.

“Glad to see you're settling in. It seems today you'll actually be helping” you jabbed at him.

“I'm a very helpful person. Just ask all my friends.”

Together you pored over a holographic schematic of the site. There were more tunnelling warrens and chemical storage than you initially thought, interlinked with several underground streams. You were glad Tony joined in on this one. You'd have to be extra careful to keep things contained during the removal.

You jumped a little as a loud, authoritative voice squawked out of Stark's wristwatch.

“Tony! You've got incoming.”

You had just enough time to see his outstretched hand reaching for his suit before an explosion rocked the lab you were in, blowing out the side wall. The percussive force knocked you all across the room.

For a moment, it was all dust and chaos. You had a moment of panic where you couldn't decide which way was up, and then the room came back into focus. There was a high pitched ringing, and you weren't sure if it was alarms or hearing damage. Probably both. You rolled onto your knees, and started coughing to clear your lungs. You spat out dust and dirt and phlegm, and probably an unhealthy amount of mystery chemicals. When you could manage breathing a bit better, you sat up and took in your surroundings. The lab had been split in two by a heavy beam that crushed the lab bench in the centre of the room. You couldn't see your respirator or other safety equipment under all the rubble. You could, however, see one of the biosecurity doors, lying askew under a boulder, lights gone dark. _That's not good._ You worked your way over to where the exit used to be, feeling gingerly for any broken bones. You seemed to be in one piece, although your ribs creaked when you inhaled too deeply, and your right ankle wouldn't bear your full weight. You searched the spot where you knew a door used to be. Your escape route was blocked by a metal brace, collapsed down from the ceiling, sparks flying from dangling wires. You were trapped.

You found a clear space to sit and take a breather. You took a moment to clear your head and push down panic (and a bit of claustrophobia that you were not about to humour right now) before you need to consider your next steps.

“Does anyone need help in there?” you heard a voice call from the other side of the rubble: the same voice as the warning from Stark's wrist.

You breathed a sigh of relief at this sign of imminent rescue.

“Yes. I'm trapped,” you called out.

“Hold tight, ma'am. I'll come to you.”

Through the gloom and dust, you saw the debris start to move. And then a powerful forearm reached through and gripped the largest beam, the barrier to your escape. With a bellow of effort, the beam rose, underneath it was Captain America, clad in his tactical red-white-and-blue. You scrambled back to make room as he shifted the beam out of the way.

“Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine. We've got to get everyone out of here.”

“Working on it. After you,” he replied, outstretching his arm towards you. You took his hand to help you rise, and he guided you towards the path he'd cleared, supporting you with a hand to the small of your back as you began to climb through.

Once through to the other side, you saw the damage had not been as great as you had feared, being mostly focused on the lab where you, Anna and Tony had been working.

“Anna! Is Anna alright? Dr. Kabalevsky?”

“She's fine. Stark got her out first.”

You resumed your hurried scramble to exit the facility. As you cleared the main exit, you saw a small space in the centre of a flurry of activity: a seated and very dirty Anna, and a fully armoured Iron Man, surrounded by a flock of hazmat-suited people. You joined them in the middle.

“We need to start decon right away,” you said by way of greeting.

“They're setting up now,” Stark replied.

You glanced at Captain America to your right. He'd also come to a stop; you seemed to have been the last one out.

“You don't have a gas filter in your suit?” you asked.

“Hmm,” he commented, setting his mouth in a stern line, “I haven't needed one before. Is that going to be a problem?”

“We'll see soon enough,” Anna told him, looking him up and down with a practised eye.

“What happened?” you asked, bewildered at how things could have gone so wrong, so fast.

“Some hot-shot with a grudge followed Stark in this morning.”

“It must be my magnetic personality,” Tony interjected, attempting to lighten some of the tense atmosphere with the typical slightly-inappropriate remarks. We ignored him.

“He's taken care of now, but he managed to stir up quite a bit of trouble.”

Anna reached out her hand, and Tony helped her to her feet. “Let's see how much.”


	2. Aftermath

You chatted nervously while going through the decontamination process. You were given a proper introduction to Steve Rogers, and since you were both friendly with Anna and Tony, you all fell into easy conversation. You were impressed with his calm certainty in the face of the current situation and his courteousness, especially towards Anna. He couldn't resist throwing a few sarcastic barbs at Tony. But then, who could? Despite the niggling worry you constantly had in the back of your mind, fully aware from years of experience of all the things that could be going wrong, you found yourself almost enjoying yourself.

You didn't discover the scope of the problem until the nurse drawing Steve Rogers’ blood broke out in angry red blisters where she had touched him. You'd been thorough with the decon showers, careful to avoid cross-contamination. You'd maintained isolation until you were sure all external traces of material were gone, and had proceeded to medical checkups. You got treatment for your bruised ribs and sprained ankle, and you all started treatment for particulate inhalation. There'd been no trace of any radioactive material on site, so you hadn't prioritised a full elecro-magnetic scan. But at the sight of those blisters, the minds of all the scientists immediately turned to radiation sickness, and back into isolation you went.

Tony's hyper-preparedness occasionally came in handy. Since nuclear armageddon was one of the things that kept him up at night, he had outfitted the main Avengers lab with full electromagnetic shielding, and you were able to seclude yourselves there, with access to all his equipment, and a chance to be productive towards the solution yourselves, instead of cooped up in a spare medical isolation unit.

Since you'd already spent hours together, going through the decontamination process, and hadn't shown any signs of radiation sickness, you decided that you'd retreat to the lab together, rather than into solitary confinement.

Once there, Tony pulled up his full array of displays and instruments. His years of working with Banner had given him an impressive knowledge of the physics of radiation, so you were somewhat prepared.

Nothing showed up in the typical radiation frequencies. What you found was just a small band near the gamma spectrum. Emanating only from Steve.

“It must be an interaction between the supersoldier serum and the contaminant. That's why it isn't affecting the rest of us,” Anna surmised.

“Isn't it though? We haven't shown any symptoms of radiation sickness. And it manifested so quickly for that poor nurse,” you spoke up.

“I hope she's alright,” said Steve, clearly guilt stricken.

“She's getting the best treatment available,” Tony reassured him. “So are we just immune? I feel fine.”

“We did all get dosed with the same chemicals. Maybe it's having a counter-balancing effect,” you said, looking to Anna for confirmation.

“It is possible. We'd best start a full blood screen, and start testing chemical and genetic interactions. See here:” she said, gesturing to bring up a holo-display of the room, marked out with ribbons of light representing radioactive rays. While Steve's form showed up as a bright spot, like a human sun, the rest of your forms appeared as darkness, casting shadows behind you. “We seem to be absorbing the same radiation that's emanating from Steven.”

She looked from the simulation to the man himself, and did a slight double take, frowning slightly. “How are you feeling right now?”  
  
“I must admit, not quite myself since the exposure. It seems to be getting worse.”  
  
“I know you're used to pain, but you must let me know these things. I don't like your colour.”

She made him recline in the lab chair, and began setting up medical devices to monitor his vitals.

“No, I don't like the look of these at all. Alright. We've got a new priority. We can't allow Steven's condition to deteriorate any further.”

You and Stark were taken aback. Things had seemed bad, but not like anything you couldn't handle until this point. But seeing the virile Captain America take such a turn shook your confidence deeply.

Steve started to speak, to say that he was fine and not to worry, but a spasm of pain must have passed through him, because he choked slightly on his words, then lay back, silent.

You all jumped into action. Tony fairly flew around the room, an anxious flurry of activity. You found a work console and started digging into researching potentially successful approaches, linking into your own research network, and setting it up so there was a continuously updating data feed from all the current monitoring as well. In the centre of the room, Dr. Kabalevsky continued to tend to her patient.

You found the most promising approach almost by accident.

Anna had been enfolding Steve's hand in her own, using reassuring touch as a doctor of her experience would, to calm her patient. You picked up the blip in the data right away.

“Do that again,” you called out, bringing everyone in the room to attention. You pulled up the same radiation display as before, and as Anna enclosed Steve's hand in her own, the radiation glow disappeared. When she removed them again, his hand still showed up dark, but brightened again as the radiation crept down from his arm to fill it. “It looks like touch can cancel out his bio-electrical field.”

“Is it enough?” Tony asked, “How far does it extend?”

“Not at all, unfortunately. We’ll have to find some way of amplifying the effect”.

Anna looked down pensively at Steve’s hand. After a moment she said absently to herself “Like sucking venom from snake bite,” and popped Steve's finger in her mouth, sucking in her cheeks.

“The field’s dropped half way up your arm,” you exclaimed.

Anna set Steve’s hand back down and patted it. “See Bubbala, it will be okay. It’s holding.”

“No wait, I can see it’s slowly returning. We should try all of us, to see if it’s an effect of the counter-field. Tony, you got the strongest dose, you should go next.”

He took quite a bit of convincing, and Steve looked uncomfortable at the thought. You rolled your eyes; men could be so uptight about these things sometimes. But he had about the same effect as Anna had. You watched the glowing field recede in the display about up to his elbow, and then return to full strength after about a minute.

“That’s all well and good,” Tony said, “But it’s no long term solution. And Steve is getting weaker. We barely understand what these fields are composed of, let alone being able to reproduce them. And clearly something else is going on here other than positive and negative cancelling out, like we thought.”

Anna tsk-tsked him quiet, “Don’t scare the patient, we’re finally on to something. This is good news. You try, ____. Maybe it’s affected your body chemistry differently.”

You walked up to Steve and took his hand in yours. You tentatively lifted his finger to your lips and sucked.

From the console, Anna said “Well, that’s something”.

“That’s, erm, very distracting,” Steve said, quietly.

You quickly dropped his hand from your mouth and sat back into your chair, looking away.

Anna spoke, “There’s something else at play, here. That had a much larger effect.”

You and Tony strode over to the console. You could see that the glowing field around Steve’s body had cleared completely from his arm, and mostly from his torso as well. As you watched, the glow of radiation started to emanate again, filling back in. Tony and Anna started to throw out theories. Tony favoured the idea that it was an effect of the original exposure, that the dissipated dose you had gotten must have been missing some other chemicals that were centered near the end of the lab where he and Anna had ended up after the explosion. Anna wanted to look into body chemistry and antibodies, and start you all with genotyping. While they were arguing over which path to investigate first, you had your own idea. You left them behind and walked over to Steve, sitting opposite him. You picked up his hand, as you had done before, and leaned in, looking into his face.

“How are you feeling?” you asked.

“Stronger,” he said.

His colour looked better, too, and some of the strain had eased from around his eyes. You leaned in and kissed him. His lips stiffened as yours met his, in surprise, but then they softened as he started to kiss you back. You melted into his kiss. His lips parted and your tongues touched. As you began to suck gently on his lower lip, he came back to himself, stiffened slightly and drew back. You let him go, watching.

“What did you do?” Tony exclaimed from the monitoring station. “He’s completely clear.”

Anna looked surprised, then slightly smug. “It is like a fairy tale. True love's kiss”. 

You blushed, glancing in consternation at Steve. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just thought that there seemed to be something in the human interaction, not just the fields connecting.” Steve still looked faintly stunned.

“Well it’s done the trick. There’s no sign of the radiation field surrounding Steve.”

He looked up at that. “So it’s over?”

“We’ll see. The other progress we made wasn’t permament.”

You watched and waited. After almost a minute, a faint prick of rad showed up on the monitor. After five, it had come back full force. Anna volunteered to kiss him, too. It had the same effect as her sucking on his finger. The glow cleared from around his head, but returned immediately. Tony had given up on his dosage idea.

“The boy’s just horny. There’s no way I’m kissing him to figure out that that’s it. You two just need to screw and get it all out.”

“No.” Steve said flatly. “I’m not you,” he said looking Tony straight in the eye, “And neither is Doctor ____.”

“He may have a point,” you said, trying to avoid looking at either of them. “It’s all very well, starting from a naturalistic science point of view, but you’re personal friends with a Norse god, and you’ve been cursed with visions on more than one occasion. There are clearly other options at work in our universe. I’d love to consult Dr Strange, or Madame Webb, although it’s not exactly either of their usual fields. Until we know more about whose serum it was we had in the lab, we have to consider that it may be physical attraction that’s making the difference. Not that I’m saying… er…” and you petered out there.

“We get it,” Tony said, “You two have the hots for each other. I said you gotta screw it out.”

“Don’t be crass,” Anna said, whapping him on the back of his head. “But he may have a point. We’re still weeks from a solution, and you can’t spend that time in quarantine. Even if it was practical to kiss him every five minutes around the clock for days, I don’t think his condition would allow it. His core vitals are still deteriorating. It would buy us some time, but it’s not a solution.”

“Oh shit. I forgot what goody two shoes you both were. You may take a bit of hand holding, but what are the alternatives? Slowly waiting around to die? Be reasonable, it’s not that big a thing.”

“He’s right,” you said, turning again to Steve. “Sex may be the connection that lets my field break through yours completely. We have to try it.”

“No,” Steve said again, softer this time, “I don’t want to use you like that. It may mean less to you, but to me love is something sacred. I wouldn’t feel right just taking what I need. I couldn’t go through with it. I won’t.”

“It doesn’t mean less to me. But I recognise that there are exceptions and grey areas to everything. You’re not expendable. The Avengers need you. The world needs you. Maybe under regular circumstances I would still be waiting for marriage, but these aren’t regular circumstances, and we don’t have the luxury of time. We’ll just do this, and figure the rest out later.”

Steve took a long beat, searching your face. You couldn’t deny that the thought of being with him thrilled you, but still the thought of offering yourself up as treatment felt a little dehumanizing. This was not how you saw your life going.

He must have seen it in your face, because he squared his shoulders and spoke, “I appreciate everyone’s concern, but this is my life. These are my principles by which I am choosing to live. This isn’t something I’m going to take lightly and be able to move on from. I don’t want a life going forward from a decision like this.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Tony exploded. “She’s offered, what’s the problem?”

Anna looked thoughtful. “I’ve gotten to know you both. ____ from many years in the lab together, and Steven as a patient since I came on with the Avengers. I think you two would actually make a great match. You’re more alike than you know. It’s the rush to push you two together, and the circumstances, that’s making you hesitate. I know it’s not the order you would want to do things ordinarily, but I think it’ll work out great in the end. I suggest marriage as the solution to both your moral hesitations.”

“Marriage!” from Tony, throwing up his arms. “You've all gone mad,” he said as he paced to the other side of the room, puttering with his equipment.

“I couldn’t,” Steve said, “You’d still be doing it out of guilt and obligation. It would just white wash over that.”

“Guilt?” you cried, “It should be me who’s worried about guilting you into marriage. Marry me or die? What kind of a choice is that?”

“You two would hardly be the first making a marriage of convenience. We do it all the time in old country,” Anna said, really laying her accent on thick in her last sentence.

You both paused. Thinking. Tony muttered away at his instrument panel at the other side of the room.

Eventually you spoke. “I do want this,” you said. “I don’t think you realise how much of a catch you are. I’m offering freely. Either one night, or forever. I know how special you are, not just as a hero, but as a soul. It would be lovely to share a life with you, but I want you to have your life, regardless of where we go from here. You’ve got your principles, but I have mine, and this is something I want to do.”

“If I’m going to do this, I’m going all in. I’m not a one night kind of guy. I’m a man outside of his time, I’ve wanted someone for so long, but things seem so different now. Maybe the old traditions are best. The really old traditions. Are you sure you want me?”

“Yes,” you said, laughing. “You’re such a silly man. Of course I do.”

Captain America looked bemusedly pleased. Then hesitant again, as a wave of pain passed across his face, but then returned your smile. “So we’ll get married.”

“There,” Anna said smugly. “It’s sorted. But where are we going to find a priest.”

“It’s fine,” you said. “If Steve says this is what he wants, I trust him.”

Tony couldn’t help himself anymore, and burst in on your little tête-à-tête. “Ha! You’ve got it sorted out finally. I think you’re all crazy. But hey, you finally got your blushing virgin bride.”

You did blush. But then anger crept in on your embarrassment. “Watch it!” you snapped at Tony. “You will speak to me with respect. I'm an adult, and a peer. And I have saved your ass on more than one occasion.”

“You’re right.” Tony looked slightly chastened, but kept a twinkle in his eye. “So let’s get going. Where are we gonna do this?”

 _“We_ are not going to do anything. _I_ will help Steve to his quarantine bedroom. This is my field of science. I am perfectly capable of running any diagnostics I feel necessary. You may carry on with your research with Anna.”

Steve went to rise to join you, but as he rose out of his chair, his knees collapsed, and he sunk back down again.

“Oh,” you cried in dismay, all your ire draining quickly in concern. Tony and Anna rushed in to help, looking grave, but you waved them off. You bent down to put your face close to Steve’s. “I do care about you.” You were afraid of saying too much, of making him feel trapped but you wanted him to know that he could have you freely. You leaned closer and kissed him deeply. He kissed you back.


	3. Union (NSFW)

“Skin to skin contact is what’s needed, I think.”

The suite you had retreated to doubled as a holding cell, but when there wasn't a villain in residence, it was appointed as a spare bedroom. It did mean that two of the walls were viewing windows. Currently, they were blacked out, the glass shaded to bar observation from either side. But, to make yourself more comfortable, you went to the recessed pocket in each corner of the room, and drew out the hidden curtains, pulling them all the way across the windows. With the curtains drawn, the room felt smaller, more cozy.

Looking at the Captain’s colour, you decided to skip the niceties, and just strip down as quickly as you could. You slipped your blouse off the top of your head. You kicked off your shoes and, bending down, shimmied out of your pants and underwear, leaving them on the floor. A brief shyness came over you, to expose yourself naked to another person. You’d just been stripped down, showering in front of a couple faceless assistants in hazmat suits, but this was different, more intimate. This wasn't a clinical safety measure; this was offering yourself up to someone else. At least you were as clean as you had ever been. Knowing that time was of the essence, you purposefully set aside your self-consciousness, shoving it to the back of your mind.

You rose and looked at Steve on the bed. He finished untying his patient robe and shrugged out of it. You climbed on the bed, kneeling beside him and took it from him, setting it on the nightstand. As you straddled him at the waist, you were acutely aware of all your points of contact: your inner thighs resting against his hips, your folds gently brushing against his abs. You bent forward to try to maximise your contact. As you did, you felt the hairs on your body rise, like touching a static charged balloon. You didn't know if it was an interaction of your bio-fields, or just the sexually-charged energy you felt full to the brim with. Steve’s lips and hands were starting to get a blue tinge, like he was suffering from hypothermia, but as you stretched out against him, his muscles were hot beneath your touch. You ran your hands up the sides of his torso, and then down the lengths of his arms, lowering your body down onto his. He may have been too weak to rise from the bed, but his muscles were firm and hard as you explored them with your fingers. You rested your breasts against his chest, trying not to lean too much weight on him. Reaching down his arms for his hands, you intertwined your fingers together. You snuggled your head into the crook of his neck and listened to his breathing. After a time, it evened out, and it seemed like he wasn’t struggling as much. You raised your head, and caught his eyes. The pain in them had eased.

“Well,” you asked, “shall we do this?”

“Only if you really want it,” he answered.

“I do,” you said, and bent down to kiss him. Your lips met, hungrier than your first kiss. Your mouths explored each other. You gave in to the moment, revelling in his taste, and how he was making you feel. Instinctually, your back arched, pressing your belly against him. You melted into him, bringing your arms in, cradling his head. As you thought about how you wanted his hands on your body, he lifted them from the mattress, wrapping his arms around your waist, and then reaching his hands up your back, holding you close. For a moment, nothing else mattered.

You felt like you could sink into his kiss forever, until you felt his muscles shift between your thighs and suddenly you wanted more. You pushed yourself upright again, and shuffled back, trailing your hands down his pecs as you went. When you reached his waist and then pelvis, you fond him standing at attention. You circled your hands around, running your fingers through the blond hair curled there, and then slid them up his stiffening cock.

You lowered your face to his groin, and lifted your eyes to his face. He was watching you intently, lips parted, panting slightly. You felt slightly self-conscious at the intensity of his gaze. But, as you remembered his physique appearing from the smoky dark to save you, muscles flexing with the strain of lifting half a building to clear your way to safety, your eyes tracked along his naked torso and he raised his arm to rest his hand behind his head, highlighting the definition of his bicep, and all the hard little muscles running down the sides of his chest. And in that moment, all you wanted was his cock in your mouth. You ran your tongue down the underside, caressing from root to head, then lowering your mouth onto his cock, pursing your lips and drawing them up to the tip. As you did, you heard Steve breathe in a long, shuddering breath of pleasure. Thus encouraged, you opened your mouth, and took him back in. You started to work your head up and down his shaft, sucking hard, so that each time you drew up, the suction pulled you back down, filling your mouth again with his cock. Steve let out soft, low moans as you blew him. You thought he was hard before, but as you worked on his penis, it swelled and grew, becoming even more rigid. You were so aroused, but your jaw was starting to tire. You didn't think you could keep at this for much longer. You pulled up off his cock, and it fell from your mouth with a wet pop. You kissed the tip tenderly, bouncing it against your lips. Looking up at him from under your lashes, you circled his head with your tongue, flickering it lightly through the slit at the tip. This elicited further moans from Steve. If you didn't know the context, you would have thought you were torturing him. You lowered your mouth onto his cock again, drawing in as much as you could comfortably, and working up and down his shaft, but you were ready for more. Your pussy was aching with anticipation, and you reached a hand down to stroke it, finding it slick and wet.

“I want you inside me,” you said. “Are you ready?”

“What about… protection?” he asked, hesitantly.

“I’m on a birth control pill for other medical reasons,” _Who knew PCOS would come in handy?_ “So I won’t get pregnant. I had an HIV screen last time I came back from Africa, but that’s mostly moot, since this is my first time having sex.”

“Mine, too.” And you were slightly surprised that a man of his fame and valor had made it this far with his virtue intact, but pleased that you could share this together. “And I didn’t think I could get sick anymore. Well, until this.”

“Alright. Let’s start slow.”

You rose on your knees again, and then slowly lowered yourself onto Steve’s penis. Although your body was ready for penetration, it still took you a moment to adjust to his firm presence at your entrance. As you slowly slid yourself down his rod, you felt a sharp pinch as you felt your hymen stretch. You may have been a virgin, but you were no naive teenager; still, he was definitely the largest thing that had ever been inside of you. The stretch settled into a faint stinging sensation, but the cavernous hunger calling from deep within your core was the stronger sensation, and you were driven to fill it.

“Are you alright?”

“Oh, yes!” you flashed him a smile of reassurance and ecstasy and your eyes locked as you pushed yourself further down, aiming to take all of him in.

A thrill of emotion, different from arousal ran up your breast. This was your moment. This was the start of something new. You reached the point where you felt completely filled and took a beat to adjust.  Without breaking eye contact, Steve reached for the hand that you had rested on his chest. He held your gaze and you started to roll your hips. You began slowly at first, rocking back and forth, but as you gained confidence, you started to gyrate your hips, rolling down as far as you could take him in, pressing your clitoris against the base of his penis, and then rising up sliding yourself up the length of his shaft. You felt a gentle sucking inside each time you rose, before you plunged back down to engulf him again.

 _Yes. This is what we thought he needed_ , you thought to yourself. But, there was no way you were going to stop your intercourse to check the readings to see if it was having the expected effect. Your body cried out to keep going, anyway. As you were thinking this, Steve reached up and slid his hands up your thighs, leaning forward to grip your pelvis, following the movement of your hips with his arms. You took that as a good sign, and threw yourself back into the moment.

The sensation was almost overwhelming. You threw your head back, arching your spine. Your firm breasts pointed upward, nipples erect. You reached behind you, resting your hands next to Steve's knees, tipping your hips so that his cock drove against the front wall of your vagina. Steve was treated to a view of your outstretched body, your clit sliding up and down his cock, pussy engulfing him as he entered you over and over.

With each repetition, the intensity of the pleasure built. You found yourself tensing the muscles in your vagina, gripping Steve’s penis hard in an attempt to hold onto that feeling. You crested, and waves of pleasure bloomed and burst out throughout your body. You convulsed and tipped forward, bracing yourself with your hands on the bed beside Steve. He caught your arms and gripped your forearms as your body responded, spreading your legs wide so you pressed down onto him, taking his whole length in. The last remaining shudders of pleasure rippled through your body. Steve looked at you hungrily and with satisfaction as he noted the flush on your face. As you started to rise off of him, you felt that he was still hard inside of you. That explained the hunger. You suspected that a more lasting recovery would take place if he finished, but you stopped yourself before saying so, fearful that he was still holding back out of respect, as if your words of consent and the response of your body hadn’t been enough to convince him. You decided to encourage him instead by just voicing your feelings.

“I want you,” you said, sliding back down onto his cock, “I need you,” lifting his hands to your breasts, “Finish inside me.” He really must have been feeling himself again, because he was suddenly sitting up against you, kissing your mouth, your neck, your breasts with a fierce urgency. Your hips began grinding of their own accord, rubbing your clitoris against his pubic bone. With his strength back, there was only so much of that he could take before he reached his hands around your waist and down your hips, gripping your ass. Effortlessly, with a show of controlled strength, he stood, scooping you up in his arms, still inside of you and pressed your back against the wall opposite the bed. As you wrapped your legs around his waist, he began thrusting in earnest, each thrust of his hips bouncing you up into the air and back down onto his rock hard member. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, and entwined your fingers in his hair. Your breasts pushed up against his chest, your nipples trailing along his body with each rise and fall. He picked up speed, and the friction and fullness of his cock inside you created a thrum in the pit of your stomach that threatened to overwhelm you. Your breath came in ragged gasps, with the growing intensity of your lovemaking, and you closed your eyes and focused on breathing. Just at the point where you felt you couldn’t take it any longer, a voice piped in through the PA, causing Steve to freeze, and you to jump in surprise in his arms at the unexpected distraction.

“Are you two all right in there? We’re missing some of your vitals,” you heard Tony’s voice, and remembered that most of the sensors were aimed to pick up wavelengths from the area in the center of the room, occupied by the bed.

You rested your hand on Steve’s shoulder, and murmured in his ear “Why don’t you set me down again?”

He looked slightly stricken, and seemed about to say something apologetic. You couldn’t have that, so you silenced his words with a kiss, abrupt and soft at first, and then you returned your lips to his for a slower, more passionate embrace. He ran an arm up your back, then turned and lowered you slowly down onto the bed, like you weighed nothing.

“Nevermind, got it. Carry on,” squawked over the PA.

You blushed over the remembered scrutiny, but Steve was not so easily distracted. He was holding himself above you, body covering yours, with his arms on either side of your head, looking down into your face.

“I’m yours, you know” he said.

“And I’m yours,” you replied, and you meant it.

You reached up to kiss him again. This time with no curiosity or altruism, but just because you missed the taste of him. You started shimmying down the bed, kissing down his chest as you went. Your knees rose up and spread. This time when he entered you, you were so slick with lust, there was no resistance at all. As he filled you, you felt whole again. He thrust in and out of you, and you rolled your hips to meet him. You felt another orgasm building inside of you. This time not tense and focused in your core, but relaxed and diffused all over your body. Your heavy breathing started to turn to soft moans and with each thrust you let out a soft “Aaahhha”. In the middle of each one, you heard a reciprocal grunt of focus from Steve. You grew louder and more frantic with each thrust, until you felt Steve tense and pause in his rhythm. As you gave yourself over to climax, you felt him twitch and pulse inside you. The pleasure washed over you. You felt alive with it, right down to the tips of your fingers and the ends of your hair. It took you a moment to come back into yourself, and you found that Steve had rolled onto his side beside you, and was gazing over your face and body as if he was seeing you for the first time. You were suddenly self-conscious under this scrutiny, and all you could manage was shy glances in his direction, until his breathing slowed to a normal rhythm, and his eyes began to droop in sleep.

You pulled up a soft blanket over Steve's slumbering form, then gently shuffled off the bed, careful not to wake him. As you rose, you felt his seed slide out of you, and were surprised by it slowly trickling down your leg. You tried to make a graceful exit to the bathroom. Once there, you stood in front of the sink, and looked at yourself in the mirror. You looked like a wanton woman. Your cheeks were still flushed in the afterglow of pleasure, your lips red and swollen from Steve's passionate kisses, your hair mussed at the back of your head. It made you feel desired, and sexy in a brand new way. You sighed with satisfaction, then turned your mind to the task of cleaning up. You grabbed a washcloth and carefully wiped up the traces of semen from your body, folding it neatly, and dropping it in a sealed plastic bag. You were going to have to check that the radiation wasn't being transmitted by body fluids. You pissed, and then hopped into a quick shower, confident that the containment safeguards build into the suite would keep the last traces from making it into the environment. You stepped out of the shower, towelled dry, and bundled into a soft, white fluffy robe.

You slipped back into the bedroom and checked that Steve was still sleeping. You weren't quite ready to face the outside world yet, or deal with the million questions you were going to get... or Tony's teasing. Not wanting to wake Steve, you curled up in the easy-chair next to the bed, and watched him sleep. His slow, regular breathing assured you that he was healing, or at least doing better, and as you watched, you found yourself nodding off to sleep.

You woke and checked the time. You’d been dozing for about half an hour. You sighed softly, and began to gather up your clothes from where you had tossed them, shaking them out, and getting dressed again. You steeled yourself, and then quietly slipped out of the containment suite, and back into the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of continuing the story. Or maybe making it the start of a series. What do people think?


	4. Girl Talk

While Steve slept, healing some of the damage, you hoped, you all worked away at analysing the problem.

You were so glad to have insisted on reserving the first pass at the monitoring data for yourself. The others trusted you to do the raw processing properly, and you were relieved that it gave you a bit more privacy to an already too exposed event. As you scrolled through the timelines, matching up respiratory rate and heart beats, you recognised certain times. This was when you touched him there, here was your first climax, and there was when he took you against the wall. If it was anyone else, it would have felt too voyeuristic, but you were there, this was more like a sweet remembrance of a beautiful moment, laid out in hard data. You transformed the data-sets before you sent them out for more general distribution, recognising what events were going to be useful in understanding the problem, and which moments could stay intimate. One of the ones that you did leave in was the final moment of climax, when Steve released himself into you. That one coincided with a massive electromagnetic energy release, fortunately of just harmless alpha radiation, followed by a drop to slightly less than background levels of radiation.

As soon as you were satisfied with your first pass at the data, you distributed it to the rest of the team. The rush and urgency to get some handle on exactly what was going on with the contaminant inside your bodies meant that there was little time to pause and think about personal things. Anna was particularly concerned about what it meant for there to be a substance in the world that affected super-soldiers so strongly and negatively.

“I don't think it was what they were attempting, but if it got out that there was a chemical that could incapacitate Captain America in just a few hours, no one enhanced with Erskine's serum, or any of its derivatives, would be safe.”

“Yes,” Tony said, eyes widening as he realised the implications of this for the Avengers, “I'll go talk to Maria about it. Damage Control is usually pretty good about this kind of thing, but some departments may be running a bit rudderless right now,” he commented, looking at you and Anna significantly. “Hill is great at keeping this kind of thing under wraps.”

Tony strode out of the room to make arrangements. You had decided, after getting a grip on the source of the radiation, that the quarantine could be mostly lifted, for the three of you at least. You still each wore radiation detector arm-bands, but it meant that you could leave the lab, and that technicians could come in, filling in a lot of the scientific leg-work to get this resolved.

You also decided that until you had established a timeline on Steve’s recovery, and whether the radiation would return or his physical deterioration continue, you were to keep strict separation between him, and those of you who had been exposed to the contaminant. You knew that having a timeline would allow him to go out into the world again, without putting the public in danger, but you longed to be with him again, to be in his arms when he woke up, and to sort out together what all this meant to you. You couldn't be close to him, but you weren't supposed to go far either, in case a sudden downturn in his health necessitated an urgent liaison between the two of you again.

Over the course of the day, you made steady progress towards understanding the interaction between your physiology and the contaminant. Pepper had come in all flustered, and made a bit of a fuss over Tony. You had met a few times in the past, and you admired her ability to rein him in. You supposed you should be looking for pointers.

In the early evening, you were joined by Helen Cho, who had been out of town at a conference, but rushed back to the Avengers Compound when she was informed of the day's events. It was hard to believe that that was only this morning; it felt like a million years ago. You had collaborated with Helen on a few projects in the past, and got on so well you considered her a good friend. Both she and Anna were more familiar with the Avengers lab and facilities than you were, and their comfort with their surroundings helped put you a bit more at ease, after the adrenaline of everything that had been thrown at you today had worn off. With her superior knowledge of genetics and cell biology, Helen saw several promising new avenues for treatment that you had missed, and you all dug in on the legwork required to fully assess them.

After several more hours of investigation, you decided to call it a day. You'd set some samples cycling through lab analysis, and some computer simulations were ticking away, so Tony headed off to take care of some of his own things. When he was worried, he got even more glib, and threw himself into fine-tuning all his work, or “meddling” as Anna called it when it was collaborative projects, so she had sent him away. With just you ladies left, Helen brewed a pot of tea, and you all settled in for a break and a bit of a gossip, moving to the office/conference space next to the lab and propping your feet up on the chairs.

As you sipped your tea, focused shifted from the scientific aspects of the day's events to the personal ones. Your mind strayed again to the man that you had just tied your life to, and opened up to physically, more than anyone else before.

“So, you and Steve?” Helen broke the ice. “How does that feel?”

“I have no idea. This whole situation's so crazy. Who knows how it's going to turn out. I barely know him.”

“You kids will figure it out,” Anna reassured you, really leaning in to her grand-motherly persona. “Besides the circumstances of this whole situation pushing you together so quickly, I really do think that a romance between you two would have always gotten serious. If I’m going to play Yenta, I think I’ve done a good job of matchmaking.”

“I do like him, but he's practically a stranger. I’m familiar with his career, but that's hardly the sum of a person. I’ve got the clearance, I could request his SHIELD files and read up on him, but that feels a little stalker-ish. You two know him, what's he like?”

Helen spoke up first. The brilliant scientist was very soft spoken. She was properly assertive with her work, as she needed to be to run a lab as prestigious as hers, but when it came to social situations, she tended to watch and wait shyly. But you were old friends, and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind when you asked her to.

“I’ve seen him in action a few times. He’s quick to intercede, and quick to see what needs to be done. He’s no scientist, but he more than keeps up with Tony, Bruce and I when discussing non-scientific matters.”

Anna interjected, “I’ve read Dr. Erskine’s notes on why he chose Steve. His thought was that the serum enhanced whatever was in a man. Not so much making a super-soldier, as a super-Steve. Of course his physique was enhanced, but as his first outings in WWII showed, it enhanced his tactical mind and memory as well. More than that, Steve was a good man, and the serum has helped him become a great man. I’ve seen that myself.

“Oh yes,” put in Helen, “He’s always treated me with kindness and respect. He’s a little slow to open up to people, and I’m so quiet myself that we aren’t the closest of friends, but I know he’s a good person, and I wish the best for him.”

“We all want to see Steve happy, and you as well. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wish I had set you two up ages ago. Although I suspect you both would have resented my meddling. He has such a strong moral compass, and service ethic; you two have that in common. But, you’re so calm; he’ll shake you out of the complacency you tend towards. And you’ll offer some stability and give him someone to make him take better care of himself. Yes, this is probably going to be very good for you both.” Anna finished smugly.

Just then Natasha strode into the room, coming to check on the progress of Steve's situation.

You knew Natasha Romanoff by reputation only, the Avengers' Black Widow. She was supposedly an ex-KGB special agent, trained in espionage and hand to hand combat. You knew that Steve and Natasha had taken down SHIELD together, and been on the run together several other times as well, so they must be close.

“Ah, Natalia, you're just the person we need right now,” Anna called out to her.

“Oh, how can I help?” Her concern for her friend was clear in her face.

“Oh we've got the situation in hand; we'll have the science sorted soon enough. We've moved on to girl talk.”

“Yes, I heard Steve finally got laid,” she said, sitting down with you, and helping herself to a cookie from the box you had opened. But, seeing your expression, a mix of embarrassment and anxiousness, she quickly changed tack. “I’m glad he's got someone; it'll be good for him. Despite the friends he's made, and built into a team, I think he's been lonely. I didn't think he was ever going to find someone, the situation's given him a push in the right direction is all.”

Her words were not as reassuring to you as she thought. You had the sudden idea that Steve hadn't wanted a relationship at all. “So he really hasn't wanted anyone.”

“There've been women. He was hung up on his first love for so long. You know, from the fourties. He met her again when he came out of the ice. I think he was waiting for her to pass before he could move on. And then there was that brief thing with her niece. But that fizzled out quickly. Probably for the best.  
"But Steve… Steve is heartbreakingly earnest when it counts and a sarcastic little shit when it doesn’t. Don’t let those baby blues fool you; he’ll tease you mercilessly if he gets the chance. He can be stubborn as an ass, too. When he thinks he’s right he’ll just dig in his heels, come hell or high water,” Natasha said. “He usually is right, though.”

“Natalia, why so harsh?” Anna broke in, “You’ll scare poor ____ away.”

“You should know what you’re getting into,” she replied, addressing herself to you, unrepentant.

“Thank you,” you say softly, “I can handle him, I think.”

“Well,” Anna said, rising, “This old woman is going to bed. It's been a long day, and you ladies would do well to do the same. There's not much more we can do until morning, anyway.”

You took her advice. You did one last walk-through the lab, double checking some things and making a few adjustments. With one last glance at the containment suite, windows darkened and with a night-nurse watching over Steve's condition, you left the lab.

Anna had a small suite she regularly used when she was attending on the Avengers, and Helen had an apartment on site, so you were directed to the guest suites, set up near the lab for visiting researchers. Someone had thought to send a personal assistant to your apartment to pick up a few things for you, so you had your own toothbrush and pyjamas, and a clean set of clothes for tomorrow.

You thought that with all that was going on in your head that you would never be able to fall asleep. But, you were so exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally, that you were gone as soon as your head hit the pillow.


	5. Connection

The next morning, you all got back to work. Steve had woken up after almost 20 hours of sleep. His system must have been working overtime to right some of the damage to his body. The medical team, directed by Dr. Cho had pounced on him immediately: drawing blood, doing a cardiac stress test, and generally subjecting him to whatever combination of tests and procedures they could think of. You had been through your own barrage of testing earlier. But as your health hadn’t been affected by the substance in your system, and his had been, his monitoring was considerably more intense. They must have explained to him that you had to keep separated because Anna kept yelling suggestions to the medical team through the intercom, gesticulating wildly through the glass until they followed through with them.

The windows to the suite had all been cleared and the curtains drawn back again, so you could see each other through them, and the two rooms, containment suite and lab, felt more like one continuous space. Over the course of the morning, you could swear you felt eyes on you, but whenever you glanced over to Steve, you found him occupied again by the demands of the medical team. For your own part, whenever there was a lull in your work, you would catch yourself watching him, daydreaming. But with the craziness going on, there was no space in time where you could talk. The crisis had thrown everything into disarray. Besides the present health and safety disaster, there had been all the regular Avengers business which now had to be adjusted. There were contingency plans to set into motion, and missions to delay.

You hoped he understood why you had seemingly abandoned him. You think he must have, because at one point, for a moment, your eyes caught each other’s from across the room. He was standing behind the window to the containment suite while Helen and a nurse were fussing with a piece of equipment in front of him, and you were tuning out of an argument Tony had gotten into with one of the lab techs over some minutiae of radiation-metal interaction. When Steve saw he had caught your attention, he raised his hand in a little wave and mouthed a silent _Hi_.

 _Hi_. You mimed back at him, waving your own fingers.

He quirked the corner of his mouth up in a grin and made a shrugging gesture at the room, you guessed at the weirdness of the situation.

You huffed out a cross between a laugh and a sigh and nodded slightly, grinning shyly.

But then something Helen did recalled Steve to his situation, and the argument in front of you reached the point where it demanded your attention, and the moment was gone.

You had your chance to reconnect properly again at lunch. Someone had ordered in Chinese food for the whole lab, and you broke into little groups to eat. You and Steve wound up with chairs and trays in the corner, eating lunch; together save for the pane of thick glass separating you. You sensed Anna's interference in the way that you had been left alone, but were grateful for it anyway.

You started talking about easy things, like your work. Steve was attentive and asked questions that showed he was genuinely interested. You asked about some of the major events of his own career, some of which you had been at the periphery of, cleaning up the aftermath, and some of which you only had knowledge of from a combination of the news, and the Avengers/SHIELD files that you had read shortly after you had been granted security clearance. Steve shared a little of what they had been, from his perspective, and you were unsurprised to learn that neither the public story nor the official classified documentation had been quite the whole truth.

People gave you a bit of space, but the talk stayed very small, because you could sense the people around you trying to resist the urge to eavesdrop, and some of them doing it better than others.

While the Chinese food was classic takeout, someone had done their research, and it was pretty delicious. Poor Steve was on hospital fare, pre-measured amounts of starch, protein and fat in the form of a very sad looking turkey dinner, in order to monitor his metabolism.

“Still better than army C-rations. The speed at which you get sick of canned meat mush is... not surprising at all, actually.”

As you continued chatting about food, you were surprised to learn that Steve's favourite meal was Thai curry, the hotter, the better. You would have thought that a man of his era would gravitate towards the plain, wholesome foods of his youth, but he shared his curiosity for new cuisines, and bold flavours.

“Although,” he confided, “my go-to comfort food is still creamed peas on toast. It's not so popular nowadays. Sam can't stomach even the look of it, but it's great on a rainy afternoon.”

Conversation drifted towards cooking and kitchens, and then where you lived.

“I had an apartment in New York, before the Avengers relocated. It was back in my SHIELD days. Natasha helped me set it up. I was still just as busy back then, so the kitchen didn't get much use, but I still had it. Now we're living much more communally. I've got a little kitchenette in my suite in the residential wing, and the Avengers' common area has a full kitchen, but more often than not, I end up in the Facility's mess.  
“How about you, are you local?”

“So much of my work requires travel, often trailing your team around, that it doesn't really matter where I live. I'm not much of a city girl, so I've got a little cabin in the woods. It's not too far from here, and the commute to the city's a reasonable distance. I guess it's not the most practical arrangement, but I like having somewhere I can retreat to. It's very peaceful out there.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It is, although it's a little isolated. The drive's not too bad, although owning an SUV would be more practical than the little coupe I've been driving. They're so hard on gas, I just couldn't bear to take the environmental hit. Smaller is better. A motorcycle would be the best on gas, I suppose, but they're just too dangerous. I know they're fun to drive, but way too many people die in motorcycle crashes for them to be a reasonable choice. It's just not worth it.”

Steve let out a small cough. “You know I have a motorcycle, right?” he asked, quirking up the corner of his mouth in a small smile.

Your eyes widened, and you bit your tongue. You'd really put your foot in it now. “Oh, I mean...” and then you pause, appreciating the absurdity of questioning the transportation choices of a man who regularly smashed up planes for a living... while he was still in them. “I suppose you may be an exception.”

“You know that what I do for the team puts me in harm’s way, almost every single mission,” he responded, turning serious. “Can you learn to live with that?”

“Oh, I absolutely respect the work you do. The world needs you. I can see that every choice you've made has been considering what needs to be done for the greater good. You're a very selfless person, and I love that about you. If you just added me into your calculations going forward, I’d be content.”

Your conversation drifted again into less personal topics. You were in the middle of a story about a fishing trip gone wrong, and working through your second helping of chow-mein, when you noticed that Steve's attention was focused mostly on your mouth. He had been so consistent with his attentiveness until this point that you couldn't resist drawing your tongue seductively across your top lip, then slowly biting the bottom one, causing the supremely coordinated Captain America to fumble his fork, dropping it on his tray, and tipping his now-empty soup bowl onto the floor.

“Oops, sorry. Sorry.”

You couldn't help but laugh as he broke into a profusion of apologies towards the nurse who had gotten up from her own lunch to help try to control the mess.

He sat back down a little flustered, but the spell had been broken. And since he had finished his meal, and your food was basically done, there was nothing left to do but to go back to work.

“Well,” you said regretfully, “I guess I'll talk to you again at dinner.”

“Yeah. I can't wait till our next 'date'.”

You grinned slightly awkwardly at each other for a second, and then he rose to clear his tray, and you turned your attention back to the lab.

Much later that evening when you all broke for a meal again, dinner turned out to be hot-dogs, sausage rolls, and frozen bananas for dessert. When you realised, you turned and glared at Tony, who gave you his best I-have-no-idea-why-you-would-be-upset look, which just confirmed to you that he was the guilty party.

You had another quiet chat with Steve, over the evening meal, and then you all wrapped up your work for the day. Despite showing no signs of further deterioration or radiation, Steve still wasn't quite up to his regular super-human health, and at 11pm Anna checked his vitals and decreed it his bedtime.

While that first day had been filled with medical talk and monitoring and crisis, your second day was just as busy, spent with half medical follow-up and just enough time to return to matters previously postponed. With most of his medical testing out of the way, Steve had a portable Avengers command centre set up, and everyone just had to come to him. You weren't officially in the loop, but you gathered that there was an important mission that had to be postponed due to this unexpected crisis taking priority, but it still needed to be ready to go the moment that Steve was cleared as safe to interact with the public. Meanwhile, you had your own matters to take care of, although you still made this your priority. But, when you couldn't think any more on the subject or when you were waiting for results to come back in, you checked in with your Damage Control team, delegating tasks and resolving problems/roadblocks that they hadn't been able to sort out on their own.

You were making good progress. Helen had settled on gene therapy as the most promising route towards a solution. You had isolated the culprit molecule from the chemical soup that had been the result of the explosion. Anna had tracked its interaction with Steve's physiology, and Helen had come up with a plan to clear it, and its effects from his system. Although you still had no idea of the mechanism of the interaction, which was something you were going to have to figure out eventually, you all relaxed a bit, now that there was a solution in sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter with Steve's turkey dinner being posted on Thanksgiving is entirely coincidental. I swear I had that bit written ages ago.
> 
> The next chapter's almost done, so it should be up soon.
> 
> I'd love to hear what people think about the pacing of the story. I'm not sure if I should speed it up, or slow it down.


	6. Intimacy (NSFW)

The third and fourth days were as full as the first, and passed just as quickly. Then, early in the morning of the fifth day since you and Steve had gotten together, his health started to decline again. In a way, it was a relief. You would be able to solve the problem more definitively if there was a detectable pattern. But your heart still went out to him, as you watched his renal function decline, his heart start to struggle to keep rhythm, and his breathing labour. You wanted to go to him right away, to make things better, and soothe his body with your touch. But he insisted on waiting it out until the radiation returned, to get a better timeline on how long he could go before he became a danger to others. His doctors agreed, as long as his condition didn't decline too far. But the very minute that the radiation display detected the telltale glow, emanating from a point in his heart, they whisked out of the room, and ushered you in.

You entered into his room again, for the first time since you had left him slumbering, your heart hammering in your chest, you were so keyed up with nerves and excitement. The last time you had been in each other's presence, you had been buoyed by the certainty of your decision and the confidence that came from knowing what needed to be done.

This time was different. There was no urgency to get physical right away, although you both understood where this was heading. But more than that, you realised to yourself, you wanted to win him over. You wanted him to love you. You had said you would be there as long as he needed you, but it was more than that now. You never wanted to let him go. With the stakes higher, so was your anxiety about how to start.

That eased somewhat when you walked into the room. Steve had been reclining on the sofa, resting a moment, his eyes closed with a tense expression on his face. But, when he heard you step in, his face cleared, and he turned a sunny smile in your direction.

“____, come sit with me.”

He squeezed over to make room for you, and you slid onto the sofa, resting your back against the side arm so you could more fully face him.

It was strange, in some ways it felt like you were meeting him for the first time, and yet you had just been talking half an hour ago. You wanted to start on familiar ground, so you asked him tell you more of the story of the time Clint had convinced Vision that he needed to grow hair.

It occurred to you that while you had been chatting before, separated by the glass window, you had longed to reach out to him, but now you could. In fact, you should. It would help him recover.

You reached out and trailed your fingers up the back of his neck, idly caressing the short hairs at his nape. It was a bit of an awkward distance to reach. In response, Steve scrunched closer to you, drawing up your legs from the sofa to make room, and placing them across his lap.

You sighed contentedly. “There, that’s better.  
“Tell me about your childhood.”

He started to share a bit about what it was like growing up, poor and invalid, in Brooklyn. You wanted to hear more about what life was like in the 30’s, but that could wait for another time. Right now it was Steve himself you was interested in.

He talked about Bucky, sharing a few hilarious anecdotes about them pal-ing around New York before the war, and about how he stuck by him when his mother died, and things got really hard.

“Even when I had nothing, I always had Bucky. I couldn’t bear it when I thought he had died during the war. He was the first person I had lost while in command, and it hit me very hard.” His voice dropped low, “He was the last family I had left and he was gone.  
“But then the Winter Soldier showed up, and I had him back. For a little bit at least. He’s in Wakanda now, back in cryofreeze, waiting to figure out what Hydra did to his head. Waiting for it to be safe.”

“They’re good people, the Wakandans. I’m sure they’re taking good care of him.”

“Do you know them?”

“I’ve got several Wakandan friends. We met doing relief work in central Africa, and I ended up doing some of my training in Wakanda.”

His eyes tightened at this statement. “The relief workers who died in Laos, did you know any of them?”

“Not personally, no. But I’d worked with that relief agency before.”

“I’m sorry.”

You could see that he carried a lot of personal guilt about the event. Your heart went out to him. “When you do that kind of work in Africa, you accept a certain degree of personal risk. The people who need the most help are where there’s political instability, or epidemics, or natural disasters. You maybe wouldn’t expect to find it in Laos, but the world’s not a safe place.”

“How long were you there?” he asked.

“Oh, I lived there for several years. Some of it was relief efforts, but some of it was just my own work. The Wakandan approach to science is ingenious in many ways. I learned a lot there.  
“But, even though I had lived in Africa for a bit as a child, and in many ways it felt like home, it was tough living as an ex-pat. Culture shock is a definite thing. I had so much fun learning the different ways that people do things, but sometimes you just get tired of every little thing being an extra level of effort. Things like opening a bank account or attending a birthday party are relentlessly an exercise in picking up social cues, and trying to figure out what you should have looked up ahead of time.”

“Oh man, can I ever relate. And the pop culture references. I never realised how common they were until half of them went over my head.”

You laughed. “Yeah, you get tired of asking to be let in on them. I eventually just became the queen of smile and nod.”

While you talked, Steve had been idly caressing your legs as they were slung across his lap, stroking his palm up the length of your leg, then trailing the backs of his fingers down to start again. As you talked, he had been getting more and more adventurous, slipping his fingers up under the hem of your skirt for a while, then pushing it up, sliding his palm up along your inner thigh. What started out as comforting reassurance was quickly becoming a distraction, although definitely a welcome one.

You trailed off mid-sentence, having forgotten what you were saying. You were only aware of Steve, head drawn close to yours, both of you breathing heavily, his eyes fixated on your lips. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to kiss him. Your kiss was slow and tender and it felt like the universe was spinning around you. His hand paused under your skirt, his fingers gently brushing the lace edging of your panties. You were so aroused, you were sure he must have been able to feel the heat radiating from your core.

You had been aching for him. While you had been getting to know each other, separated by glass, you had just wanted his arms around you again. But, now that his hands were caressing your skin, your body remembered his touch, and responded avidly. You bit your lower lip, craving more.

 “I want you to touch me, Steve.”

There’s so much fire in the smouldering look he gave you in response, you’d think you would melt. Maybe you did. You hooked your thumbs under the waistband of your panties and lifted your hips a little to slide them off your ass. Steve took them from you, and slipped them down and off your legs, dropping them, forgotten, off the edge of the sofa. His focus was all on you. You lifted one knee to your chest, spreading your legs slightly to give him a better view. And better access.

He brought his fingers up through your slit, fingers probing tenderly between your lips. Caressing up and down, exploring till he found the hidden bud of your clitoris. You let out a soft gasp. His slick fingers brushed past it, and then returned to roll it between thumb and forefinger. You unravelled beneath his touch.

He moved his attention lower, until his fingers found your entrance. He slipped one knuckle in, then the whole length of is finger, gently questing inside you. He slipped back out again, then returned with a second finger. Now that his fingers had found home, he brought his attention back to your face, watching your response intensely.

“You’re so tight. I don’t know how I fit.” And then, softer, “Did it hurt?”

“A little,” you confessed, “but you’re absolutely going to do it again, if I have any say in the matter.”

You reached down and pressed his hand to your body, pushing his fingers deeper, then guided his thumb to the hood of your clit.

“Right there. That’s the spot. Little circles.”

A moan escaped your lips as he obliged. Soon you were bucking your hips, humping his hand in an attempt to eke out more pleasure, throwing off his rhythm. You didn't think you could sit still and be good long enough for him to get you off. And he was still being too polite to hold you down and make you. You were okay with that. This wasn’t the main event, anyway. 

You reached for his hand, grasping it in yours. “Wait,” you said, “We’re wearing way too many clothes for this.”

You swung your legs around to the floor, and stood before him. You started unbuttoning your blouse, which instantly riveted his attention to the soft cleavage you were slowly revealing. You got to the last button, and shrugged off your blouse. Steve swallowed hard, hands flexing as he watched.

“Do you want to help me with this?” you asked, quirking a finger under your bra strap, pulling it away from your body.

Steve reached forward, trailing his fingertips lightly up the sides of your ribs then wrapping his hands around your ribcage, almost encircling you. He drew closer as his hands moved behind you, fingers trembling slightly as he reached for the clasp of your bra. He unlatched it, and you let it fall from your body.

 “You're so beautiful,” he breathed.

You stepped forward into the circle of his legs, and grasped at his shirt, pulling upward. He lifted his arms, and it slid off mussing his hair as it went. You absently smoothed it down for him, as you ran your eyes along his naked torso, then glided your hands over the tops of his shoulders, admiring the sharp definition of each of the muscles there, and revelling in the feel of his skin beneath your fingertips.

You stepped back and, unfastening the clasp on your skirt, let it drop to the floor.

“Take your pants off.” Your voice broke a little on the final word.

He did so, pulling down his waistband, exposing his stiff erection, then kicking off his pant legs. Looking up at you, he wrapped his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your belly, and breathing in the scent of your skin.

You crooked a finger under his chin, drawing his mouth towards yours as he rose to his feet. His kiss engulfed you. You realised just how tall he was, as he bent his neck down to meet your face, wrapping his arms around you and drawing you upward. You broke the kiss, and reaching for his hand, led him to the bed. You turned and sat on the edge, then pulled him backwards with you, pulling his body down on the bed, covering yours.

You gazed at each other for a moment, panting slightly. You reached up and caressed his face, patting his cheek affectionately. Your body was aching for him. You could feel the emptiness between your legs, could feel the desire to have it full.

“Go,” you whispered, “but gently, please”.

“Always,” he promised, and then glanced down between you, to where you had spread your knees to wrap around him. He took his member in his hand, questing forward with the tip, gently exploring your folds with his cock, like he had with his fingers, seeking your entrance.

You gasped involuntarily as he found it, stretching you out around him. The small noise brought his attention back to your face, and he watched you carefully as he slowly pushed in further, giving you inch by inch, until he was engulfed inside you, and you were pulsing around him, adjusting to his firm presence inside you. You were filled, and that aching need now turned into crazy desire. Steve had been waiting patiently for you to adjust, but you were more than ready now. You started rolling your hips, sliding around him. He took that as his cue and started working his own hips, slowly drawing out, and then plunging back in. Sensation overtook you, and you reached around his broad chest, digging your fingers into his back.

After a while of this, the intensity started to pateau. Steve must have felt it, too, because he rolled over, pulling you on top, like your first time together. You started to grind on top of him, quick, short movements to create delicious friction between you. This set your breasts into motion, which attracted Steve’s warm hands. He gripped them firmly, running his thumbs around your nipples until they were erect and hyper-sensitive.

You changed tempo, rising up slowly all along his considerable length, until his tip almost slipped out of you, and then plunging back down, engulfing him in your warm body, pausing a second to revel in the full, stretched feeling, then rising back up again. After a bit, you rose up on your knees, perching atop his cock, rolling your hips around the head, teasing him until Steve couldn't take it anymore, and reached for your hips in a tight grip, pulling you down on him, impaling you on his cock. Holding you immobile, he thrust his hips from below, plunging into you again and again.

Each thrust sent a pulse of pleasure through you, radiating from where he was embedded in your core, throughout your whole body. It was overwhelming. You felt like you were losing track of reality; there was only you and Steve and the intensity of feeling you were sharing. Hanging your head forward, your mouth dropped open and your eyes fluttered closed.

“Look at me.”

Your bodies were so emotionally charged, you couldn't tell if that was a plea or a command. You didn't know which one would excite you more. You pushed yourself to comply. You wanted to make him happy. You wanted to make him love you.

You forced your eyes open, keeping them locked on his. Although, your focus kept going hazy as he hit particularly sensitive spots inside of you with his cock, pounding in and out of you. You resisted the urge to just throw your head back and give in to ecstasy.

“Steve! You make me feel amazing.”

He reached up between you and rubbed your clit briskly, double tempo to his thrusts into you.

“Ohhh!” you let out almost a scream of lust as you suddenly came. Hard.

Steve paused in his thrusts from below, and you contracted and writhed on top of him; the orgasm taking you pulsing through your flesh until you were insensible with pleasure. As it ebbed, your muscles turned to water, tingling slightly. You leaned forward, resting your hands on Steve's shoulders and grinned down at him, letting out a triumphant “Hah,” of pleasure.

He took that as his cue, and began thrusting into you again, picking up speed as he chased his own climax. Before long he found it and fairly burst into you, pumping you full of his seed, with a roar.

You cherished the moment, reaching down and brushing aside the stray lock of blonde hair that had fallen across his face, then leaned down and gently touched your lips to his in a tender kiss.

You knew people were waiting for him, so you started to slide off of him, to let him go, but he just clutched you tighter, rolling with you till you were resting on your sides.

“Stay with me,” he said, holding you close.

“I thought you had to get moving, now that we've... sorted out your problem.”

“I do, but I’m not ready yet.”

That was fine with you. You relaxed into post-coital bliss. After what you'd just done, you were completely spent. You revelled in how close you felt to Steve in that moment, arms and legs entwined, his now softening cock still inside of you. You didn't want to move, ever. It was too early in the day to fall asleep, but your mind drifted into nothingness, and you just floated for a while in his arms.

You lost track of time, but after what felt like both too soon, and an eternity, Steve let out a long sigh and slowly pulled out of you. You watched lazily as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Reaching his arms up, he stretched out his back and shoulders; you could see his muscles flexing under his skin. He got up and you heard him walk to the washroom and start the water for a shower. He finished quickly and re-entered the bedroom to start dressing. All his tactical gear would be in the Avengers ready-room, but someone had brought up his underlayer and he slipped on a technical-looking tight blue shirt and navy cargo pants. He looked to you on the bed, and seemed somewhat surprised to see you watching him with half lidded eyes, rather than dozing.

“I'll be back in a few days” he told you, before pausing, then striding back to the bed, bending over you, and planting a soft, light kiss on your lips.

“Bye” you whispered huskily, not sure what else to say in the moment.

And then he was gone.


	7. Lull

Now that a safety timeline had been established, it meant that lives could return to a semi-normal routine. Steve had headed out on his mission with Hawkeye and Black Widow. You didn’t know the details of what they would be doing, but you had heard from Tony that they had been planning it for months. In the aftermath of the crisis, it had been delayed as long as it possibly could have been and they had started looking at scrapping the whole thing, and then having to deal with whatever global political instability popped up as a consequence. But, things had worked out in time, and they had headed out on mission, mostly according to plan, just a little delayed. You wondered what Steve’s role in the plan was, and hoped he was doing well.

A return to routine also meant that you could return to your own work, dropped for the emergency that had overturned your life, but now pressing enough to demand your attention in person.

You packed up your few belongings and consolidated your research in the lab, organising your notes on the substance, so they would be useful to anyone who needed to refer to them. Anna and Helen had pretty much gotten a handle on an approach to treatment. They had settled on a combination of blood filtration, using a modified dialysis machine, and stem cell treatment, reversing the modification the substance had made to the bone marrow of those affected. Tony was to be the guinea pig, taking the first round of treatment to see if it was effective, and to monitor any side effects. If everything worked out fine, Steve and Anna were next on the docket. You all had high hopes that what you had would do the trick. You had confidence in the Doctors’ work, and were looking forward to moving on from this. Although, your own treatment was to be delayed: postponed in case Steve’s condition wasn’t fully resolved or the radiation returned. It meant extra medical monitoring in case the substance in your blood started to affect you, but you were feeling fine, and not contagious in any way, and so you were okay with that.

With the situation at the Avengers’ Facility mostly wrapped up for now, you said your goodbyes to your friends in the lab, and headed out to check on the progress of the site remediation at the ruined bunker. Your Damage Control team had been keeping you up to date on the progress, but you wanted to see the site in person. The drive out gave you a chance to gather your nerves, and shift your mindset from the strange sense of urgency that everything at the Avengers Facility had been steeped in, and back to your own everyday life of scientific meticulousness in organising site remediation projects, and managing your lab team. Already, everything since the crisis was taking on a dream-like quality; it seemed so surreal you were having a hard time convincing myself it had really happened.

As you pulled up to the site, it showed all the signs of having made good progress. The hazmat tents that had been put up after the explosion were mostly gone, although you could still see one small one for suiting up and decontamination. With the upheaval and damage to the bunker's structure, focus had shifted from remediation to containment, but that was a temporary stop-gap, and now it was time to try to make the area safe again. Your main concern had been keeping the contaminant out of the water supply, and the engineering team assured you that they had set up sufficient barricades to stop up the contaminated underground streams, and keep contaminants out of the water table. You had set up regular testing to be sure anyway, and so far all the results had come back clean.

With containment looking successful, the next step was either going to be removal or the breakdown of the contaminants into less harmful molecules. At Damage Control, you had a whole suite of bio-engineered microbes that would digest and break down a number of known harmful substances, but you were hesitant to make use of any of them this time, due to how unpredictable that one contaminant had been with human physiology. There was no way you were going to risk making things worse.

Your team had assembled a list of identified chemicals that had been released during the bunker take-down and subsequent explosion. Some of them you recognised right off the bat, as having short half-lives, and knew they would break down on their own. Others would take some experimentation as to the best approach. You favoured heat for the soil contaminants. Their molecular structure looked relatively unstable, and the subsequent by-products would be much more straightforward to deal with. You were waffling between filtration and draining for the contaminated water. Maybe both. With the way that the streams intersected the bunker, draining would probably be easier to accomplish, and would probably end up being more effective. You went with that, and began giving directions and assignments for the next phase.

After a long day of intensive work and decision-making, you were just about beat. You knew your staff would keep going as long as you were, but you could see they were starting to flag, too. They'd been working steadily at this task since that first morning when it all went down, but safety had been securely accomplished, and things had progressed to important, but not urgent, so you sent everyone home, and headed out yourself.

You hadn't been back to your own place since the start of the crisis, almost a week ago now. As you walked in the door, the relief of familiar surroundings hit you like a wall. You hadn't realised just how much you had missed your little cabin in the woods. You were looking forward to an evening relatively free of demands, and a bit of solitude.

You collapsed onto the couch, and relaxed with a sigh. You looked around fondly at the rustic, but comfortable, furnishings that you had acquired over the years. You were pleased with how you had outfitted the rural cabin, really making it into a home. You had been happy here. But now, as you looked around, you couldn't help imagining what it would be like to share it with another person, with Steve. You could just see him walking in the door at the end of a long day, or laying in a fire in the woodstove at the start of a cold evening. Looking up at the loft, where your bed was, cold and empty, you reflected on how nice it would be to have Steve to warm it with you.

You wondered where he was spending his night, and if he was thinking of you, like you were thinking of him. In two days, he was due to be back, and your whole whirlwind acquaintance would start back up again.

Reluctantly, you got back up off the sofa to take care of the little housekeeping tasks that had been neglected for the week you had been away: cleaning out your fridge, gathering your laundry, generally tidying. Some of your plants were looking a little droopy, but you had chosen mostly succulents and cactuses for a reason. Tomorrow you would head in to the Damage Control headquarters in the city, and oversee the remediation efforts there. There were a few promising neutralisation experiments that you wanted to see the results of. And then one more night at home, then back to the Avengers' Facility to hopefully finalise the treatment approach. And, a twinge from your heart reminded you, to be there when Steve got back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting... and the short chapter length. It's a tough time of year to find time for writing.
> 
> But the next one is mostly done, and should be up soon.


	8. Reunion (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sleepwear inspiration](http://i.imgur.com/48owbk2.jpg)

While the Captain was still away on his mission, Helen and Anna finalized their treatment plan, and started Tony on the regimen. Other than the minor discomforts associated with the medical procedures, things seemed be going quite well. You ran him through the full suite of monitoring scans that Steve had been through before he left, generating an unconsolidated load of raw data ready to be assessed, and extrapolated to attempt a prediction at how it would affect enhanced physiology. You had returned to the Avengers Facility to assist, and you all worked away at analysing the initial results, divvying up the workload. For the chemical and molecular interactions, you knocked out a few basic statistics, and set up a more thorough algorithm to run overnight, picking up any more complex anomalies.

Before you realized it, it was coming up to midnight. You checked your messages, and there was a note from Steve. They’d completed their mission, and were heading back to the Facility. Even on the QuinJet, it’s a multiple hour flight. You could expect them back around 3am. You’d missed dinner, but snacked as you worked, so you just decided to pack it in for the night. You packed a few lab notes, and intended to head to the elevators. But, instead of one of the rooms set aside for visitors, Tony's Facility AI directed you to Rogers' suite. You were not planning on this; you weren’t ready to presume upon his space like that. But, when you stepped inside, you saw that your bag and other personal effects had been set in the bedroom. _Was it the Facility staff, or Steve himself who made this decision?_ You decided to stop agonizing over it. You were afraid to make a fuss over the subject; that would only be counter-productive. As you accepted your current living arrangements, your thoughts moved to sharing that bed with Steve, and the idea of spending the night so close to him thrilled you. He’d be back soon. You decided to grab a few hours sleep first. You changed into your nightdress, a wrap number that was fairly modest in cut, crossing over and tying under your bust, in a touchable coral silk that you knew made your skin glow. You hoped that struck the right balance between enticing and avoiding presumption. Slipping under the neatly made covers, you tried not to muss them too much, in case you wanted to make a graceful exit. Drifting off, you dreamed of Steve.

A buzz from your phone woke you up. It was a message from him, letting you know that they were back. “In case you’re still awake, I’ll be up in a minute. I did the de-briefing on the jet, so I shouldn’t be long”.

You were relieved that he seemed to be expecting to find you in his room, but nervous butterflies danced in your stomach at the thought of spending time alone with him again. You climbed out of the bed and smoothed the covers over. You composed yourself, wiping sleep from your face, and smoothing and then fluffing your hair. Tucking your legs under you, you leaned back on the pillows, waiting.

You heard him enter the ante-room. He sighed, and you could hear him kicking off his boots and the soft clink of his shield as he set it down. All the rest of his gear would be stored neatly downstairs, in the levels with the workroom. But, the shield that was an extension of his arm when he was in action, that, he liked to keep close. Suddenly, he was at the door of the bedroom, his broad shoulders filling the frame.

“I missed you,” he said simply, with longing and eagerness in his look. All your apprehensions about how your presence here would be received flew away, as you took in his face. You felt wanted, and you want in return. You rose up on your knees, loosening the fastening of your nightdress as you did, so the front fell open, revealing your shapely breasts, and the neat triangle between your legs. His eyes drifted downward, taking in the sight. You stretched out your arms, reaching for him.

“Come here,” you beckoned. In two swift strides he swept you up, your foreheads touching, your breath intertwining. He must have showered on the jet after the mission, but his exertions since then had left a pleasing musk on his skin. You breathed it in deeply. You slid your hands down his body, exploring the muscles of his back, his sides, as you did. Following his shirt down, you dipped your fingers past his belt, inside his pants, gripping the hard muscle of his ass, thrilled at your own boldness. Finding the bottom hem of his shirt, you pulled it upward, bringing it up past his broad shoulders, and over his head. You stretched to lift it past his arms, but you weren't tall enough. Your efforts pushed your soft and yielding breasts against his firm chest, and he took control again and flung the shirt to the corner of the room, then reached down and pulled you close. You kissed. Your lips parted, to take more of him in. You found a frantic rhythm of sucking, lingering kisses. You forgot that there was anything else, there was just you and Steve, your lips entwined, your tongues caressing. But he had other things on his mind. His lips left yours, and travelled down the edge of your jawline, your neck. He lingered on your pulse point, and you threw your head back, wanting to expose all of yourself to him, to be consumed by him. He continued little, travelling kisses trailing down your collar bone, your clavicle, nestling his head between your breasts, kissing the valley between them. You wrapped your arms around him, your upper arms pushing your breasts forward to caress the sides of his cheeks. His arm reached around behind you, pressing against your back, his hand running through your long silky hair. He formed a fist, trapping your hair without pulling, but immobilizing your head. His other hand travelled down the front of your body, palm flat against your belly. Reaching lower, he slipped a finger between your lips. They were slick with anticipation, and you felt him sliding back and forth, exploring. He found your clitoris, his fingertip circling around it each time, before sliding back.

“Do you like that?” he asked.

Your legs went weak and a soft and breathy “Yes,” escaped your lips.

He pulled away, and you felt bereft of his presence, until you saw why. His hands worked his belt buckle, unfastening it, and dropping it down to reveal his fully erect penis. _I_ _suppose_ _we_ _really are going at it hot and heavy._ He sat beside you on the bed to kick his pants off, and you pivoted on one knee to straddle him as he did. You could feel his cock pressed between your bodies, as you reached up to rest your elbows on his shoulders, entwining your fingers through his hair. You rocked your body up and down, pressing your yielding body to his, teasing the head of his cock with your now dripping vagina. As you lowered yourself, you rolled your pelvis so his cock slid against your lips, past your clitoris and between your bellies. You could feel his growing tension, and self-denial. You’d taken the lead in your previous encounters out of necessity, but this was Steve Rogers at his full power. You decided it was his turn now. You wanted to be possessed by this man. You slid to his left. He tried to follow you as you did, but you turned your back to him, leaning forward onto the bed, so you were on your hands and knees. You turned your neck and peered over your shoulder at him, past your round and upturned ass.

“I want to you _take_ me.”

That was all the invitation he needed. He rose, eyes never straying from your exposed pussy. You wiggled your hips for him, encouragingly. He directed his cock towards you, sliding it up and down between your lips until he found your entrance. He pushed slowly forward. You felt the head of his cock enter you and your vagina twitched at the sensation of the rim of his head pushing past your opening. After a beat, he pushed the rest of himself in. You felt wonderfully full, like there was a part of you missing and now you were finally whole. His strong hands gripped your hips, immobilizing them as he began long thrusts into you, slowly pushing in his entire length, and then agonizingly withdrawing it, the skin of his cock dragging past the entrance to your pussy with each repetition. He kept the pace slow at first, but then gradually picked up in speed and intensity as you both got more and more worked up.

He lent forward, bracing his muscled forearms on the bed on either side of you, covering you. You felt his hot breath on your neck, and a deep rumbling moan in rhythm with his thrusts. You felt possessed, like you'd been well and truly conquered. You wanted nothing more than to let him claim you. He dipped his head to kiss your cheek, and you turned yours, lips seeking his, but too distracted by the sensations filling your body and your heart to manage more than soft moues in his general direction. A tingle passed down your spine, and you arched your back against him in response. The movement changed the angle of him inside you, and you felt him pushing inside you, directly towards your g-spot. He picked up the tempo of his thrusts, which awakened a pressure inside you that blocked out any remaining coherent thought. Your arms collapsed, and your face dropped down to the smooth surface of the bed. Your knees would have given way, too, but you found that he had returned his grip to your hips, holding you close. The room filled with the sound of skin hitting skin every time you came back together, and you heard your own voice crying out “Steve. Yes. Oh. Yes. Steve.”

Your breathing became more ragged, out of rhythm with the movement of your bodies, and as you neared the break of orgasm, your breath halted altogether as you crested the peak and gave yourself over to the pulsing convulsions that started with your vagina, but spread to the muscles in your legs and core as Steve continued his steady thrusting into you. As your body began to relax into the afterglow of your orgasm, you felt his cock stiffen and swell inside you, before pulsing his seed deep inside. He gave a few more ragged thrusts, prolonging the last of his own orgasm before he flopped forward onto the bed beside you, completely spent. Without him to hold you up, you collapsed into the soft bedding completely, rolling onto your side so you faced each other.

Relaxed, you gazed at each other, neither of you with any desire to move whatsoever. As you watched his face, he wore a somewhat dazed, but happy expression. You couldn't help yourself reaching over to caress his face with the back of your fingers, tracing the lines of his jaw, feeling the faint scratch of stubble forming. His own hand reached to trail lazily down your side, following the curve of your waist and the swell of your hips. You rested comfortably in each others silence for a while.

“So, this is real” you said, reverently. You realized as you did, that while you'd been broadcasting your feelings with your words and your actions, you hadn't left much room for Steve to reciprocate. Fear tightened around your heart at the thought that you may have been misinterpreting his perspective, and imagining a romance that had been mostly one-sided. You frantically tried to recall what he'd said on the topic, and if there was anything that couldn't have just been said for politeness, or had been purely lust.

Steve must have seen the panic in your face, because he settled his arm possessively around your waist, and shifted closer to you, looking deeply into your eyes.

“You're a very special person. And, I find, very special to _me_ _._ ”

“But where is this going?” you gushed. Now that your anxiety was piqued, you wanted to get everything out in the open, settled; so you were on the same page. “If there's an 'us' what does that look like?”

His eyes turned introspective for a moment, and you could tell by the set of his jaw, and the pursing of his lips that he was taking your question very seriously.

“I thought I knew, once, what my life would look like. I'd serve my country, and when the war ended, we'd all go home, and start to rebuild some stability. I pictured a little household, with a wife and kids waiting for me at the end of every workday. That all seems like something from a dream now: hazy and detached. Everything seems different now. _I'm_ different now.”

“Do you still want children?”

“I don't know... I don't know.” He focused his eyes on my face again. “Do you?”

“I don't know either; it would depend on so many other things. Do... do you still want a wife?”

“I'd like _you_ ,” he replied, snuggling you closer for emphasis. You let out a small breath of relief you hadn't realised you'd been holding. “The domestic housewife I pictured in my youth seems naive now. It would be so impractical nowadays. Heck, it probably would have gone all wrong back then, too. I _would_ like a partner; someone to share my life with. It's been lonely since I came out of the ice. And the team's great, and in some ways I have Bucky back, but it's not the same as having someone really special.”

“So, do you think we could have a future together?”

“I gave you my word, didn't I?”

“Yes, but I won't hold you to that. I believe that you're a man of honour, but I won't tie you down with duty. I want you, but I don't want a man who's with me out of obligation.”

“Maybe it started that way, but not anymore. As I've gotten to know you, I find myself admiring you more and more. I can see us growing old together. None of us know how many days we have left on this earth, but I want to spend those days with you.”

After such a declaration, you couldn't help yourself. You pulled yourself in for a kiss, slow and unhurried, and for a moment, all your other cares seemed to fade away.

“I love you.” It just spills out of your mouth. You're a little surprised, but you mean it. Deeply.

Steve looks introspective, and fear grips your heart, as you worry he’s searching for a tactful thing to say to let you down gently, but he must have been searching his feelings, because he turns his eyes back to yours with a “Yes. I definitely love you, too.”

He caught your hand in his, and gave it a tight squeeze. “So let's get married. Soon,” and after a pause “ _Will_ you marry me?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” you laughed delighted, and were rewarded with a boyish grin beaming in your direction.

“I don’t have a ring.”

“That’s fine. I don’t need one. It’ll be a short engagement anyway. Just a wedding band will make me very happy.”

“So then it's just the wedding to arrange, and we'll be husband and wife. Tony will help out, he loves to throw parties.”

“Don't I know it. Any chance to show off. I suppose all the Avengers will be there.”

“Yes, they're a great team, and my dear friends, all of them. I'd like to invite the Howling Commando's descendants, too. And T'Challa as well.”

It took you a beat to realise he meant King T’Challa, ruler of the nation of Wakanda, who Steve was apparently on a first name basis with.

“And if he's able to come, I suppose we'd have to invite the rest of the diplomatic core; Senator Brant and the rest of the SHIELD higher ups. And probably a few carefully chosen press.”

You were a little shocked at how quickly the list was accumulating, and got bashful at the prospect of having to carry the attention of all those people on your wedding day. “Wow, so many people. I don't know how I feel about such a huge wedding.”

“I’m sorry. I _am_ a public figure. I’m afraid you’re going to be under a bit more scrutiny than you have been in the past.”

“It’s not that so much that I mind, but it’s just not how I pictured my wedding day. I wouldn’t be able to relax at all. Couldn’t we just elope?”

“I don’t want to do this in secret. I want everyone to know that I’m claiming you as my wife. How we met is no-one’s concern but our own, but I want to show you off. I want everyone to know that I love you.”

You melted a little at that declaration, but stuck to your guns. “What about if we went to Wakanda? It would be a valid reason not to invite everyone and their dog, and it would mean that you could have Bucky for your best man. We can have a big reception when we get back, and you can tell anyone you want then, but we’d have the ceremony just for us.”

He made a show of deliberating, but you could tell that you had him convinced the moment you mentioned Bucky.

“All right,” he said, “Just as soon as I get this damned poison out of my system, we’ll make it happen. And not a moment later, you hear.”

You laughed, and peppered the mock-seriousness on his face with giggling little kisses, until he broke and started laughing with you.

“You know, with things having gone so well with Tony's treatment, yours is just about ready to start. In order to gauge its effectiveness, we're going to have to separate again, but I've managed to convince everyone that we won't need strict quarantine between us. I’ll have to give you up for a while, until we're sure the cure has taken hold, and I don’t want to. We can still be in each others presence, but we're forbidden from touching.”

“Nooo, but I love the touching,” Steve whined while nuzzling in to the crook of your neck, and you couldn't help but giggle at the ridiculous incongruity of such a specimen of masculinity fussing like a thwarted schoolboy.

You used the moment to roll into him, lifting his arm around you, snuggling in with your back to his chest.

“I suppose we'll wind up doing what a lot of my friends have done, and end up having a period of abstinence leading up to the wedding. It always seemed kind of unnecessary after they'd lived together for years unmarried, but I guess we're going to end up following suit.  
“You're the only man I've ever had, and that seems like the more important thing than not sleeping together before the wedding.”

“You're the only woman I've been with, but I'd still have liked to have gotten a blessing for our union before we started. Not that I'm complaining.”

The hand of the arm wrapped around you had drifted to cup your breast, and Steve had begun caressing the nipple which hardened at the touch. It wasn't the only thing getting hard, you realised, as you felt a firm nudge from behind.

“I can see that,” you commented, delighted. “I sense that someone's up for round two.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Still snuggled in close, you started to push back against him, rubbing your skin, revelling in the full body contact. His member was trapped in the press between your bodies, and you ground against it, massaging it against your ass, until you slid up Steve’s body high enough, and he slipped between your thighs.

He tucked his head in close to yours, and you could hear his heavy breathing as he began rolling his hips, sliding his stiff erection against your pussy, past your glistening lips, until you reached down and directed his head inside of you.

You slowly gyrated against each other, into each other. Your other moments coming together had been marked by high passion, and a lusty intensity, but this was intense in a new way, almost comforting. There was now no sense of urgency; you knew you had the rest of your lives to spend together. You had never felt closer to another human being. It felt like you were really becoming one person.

Your orgasm built up on you slowly, and when it broke it was like a rose blooming, soft waves of pleasure radiating through your being. You sighed in contentment. A short time later, you heard what you were beginning to recognise as the telltale pattern of breathing that meant Steve was about to crest his own peak, and he soon did, pulsing slowly inside you, arms clutching your body, gripping you closer. You raised one of his hands to your lips for a soft kiss, then tucked it under your head and let sleep overtake you.

 


	9. Resolution

Slight movement and the rustling noise of another person started to bring you up gently from a deep slumber. As you began to become aware of reality again, you pried your bleary eyes open, and made out the golden form of Steve Rogers, repetitively bending to touch his toes, doing his morning calisthenics.

Your eyes cast about for the clock. 5:45 am. You groaned. _Of course Captain America is a morning person._

Your movement caught his attention.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Steve greeted you. “Are you ready to start the day?”

 _All right._ You tried to piece together your faculties, aiming to form an intelligible response. You managed some words. But, your sleep-addled brain must have been not quite up to the task, because Steve just laughed and said “Never mind,” and bent to kiss you gently on the forehead, “take your time.”

He finished his last set of repetitions, waiting for you to fully come awake. But he must have decided that after the fifteen minutes that it took him, during which you had only managed to stare at the wall, he would just move on with his day and let you catch up with him later.

“I've got to meet Sam for a run. I'll be back after eight. Make yourself at home. Anything in my suite is yours, and there should be a few people milling about the common area making breakfast soon.”

He waited patiently and you fought the fog clouding your brain, managing a smile and a “yes... thanks.” And he slipped out to start his day.

After he had gone, you finally swam up through the last strata of sleep, and all the things you could have, should have, said earlier filled back in. _Good morning,_ would have been a start. _Sorry, I'm a slow waker._ He probably figured out himself. _Thank you, I'll be up soon,_ would have been helpful. _Don't worry, I'll find my way around._ Maybe _Thanks for making me feel so welcome._ Or, _I love you._

Too late now. You'd just have to make up for lost opportunities later. You padded to the ensuite, showering and dressing quickly to try to catch up with your day.

You tidied up the belongings that you had brought from your cabin, not unpacking, but not exactly _not_ not unpacking either. You were going to have to sort out some logistics, and soon.

With nothing left to do, and a craving for morning caffeine driving you forward, you steeled yourself and exited the suite. Steve's door was near the end of a short corridor that opened into the Avengers’ private common area. There was a modern, yet comfortable lounging area in the centre, with a large table and chairs to the left and an open kitchen area to the right. You could smell the aroma of fresh coffee brewing and made your way over there.

A young woman was adding water to a pot at the sink, with her back to you, but turned to set it on the stove, noticing you entering the room.

“Good morning, you must be ____. I'm Wanda, and this is Vision,” she said gesturing to the distinctly red gentleman (gentle-android?) seated on the other side of the island.

“It's nice to meet you. I'm not intruding am I?”

“Not at all. I was just finishing making some oatmeal. You can keep me company. Everyone else ate before they went out, and Vis here doesn't eat at all.”

“It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. While I do not eat, as Wanda explained, I do think that I can carry on appropriate breakfast conversation.” You didn't know what you were expecting from whatever it was that Vision had become, but your first impression was genial politeness.

Wanda shared up a heaping bowl of porridge, you helped yourself to some coffee from the pot, and you all sat down to share a meal together.

You were a little unsure what your role was supposed to be here. You didn't want to just bail on them but you had your own things to get on to.

“I'm not sure how your mornings here go, but I'm supposed to meet Tony and Dr. Cho at 8:30 in the main assembly hall. That's just one floor down from here, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Wanda answered. “We've got a regular training day scheduled, so we're meeting Steve and the rest of the crew there at the same time. They're doing their morning conditioning right now. Vis and I get to bow out because we can fly. I do still need to keep in shape, but I prefer swimming to running laps at dawn.”

“I can't say I blame you.”

You continued making small talk over breakfast, then tidied up and headed down to the assembly hall. When you arrived, Clint and Natasha were already there. They greeted you politely. You'd made Clint's acquaintance over the course of that quarantine week in the lab, as he had been in frequently to consult with Steve over their mission. Although, that week had been such a flurry of activity, you hadn't gotten to know either him or Natasha very well, beyond general introductions.

You let out a small sigh of relief as Helen and Anna arrived. Not that the Avengers weren't being perfectly pleasant, but they were Avengers. You were glad to have some intermediaries who knew you both to break the general air of cool politeness. The arrival of Tony Stark shook things up even more.

You felt a brush of fresh air from behind you, as an outside door opened and closed. You turned, and it was Steve, coming in with Sam close behind him. He strode straight up to you, a lopsided grin on his handsome face, and captured your hand in his. You could feel all the eyes in the room swivel towards you.

“Have you told them?” he asked.

“No, not yet.”

“We're getting married,” he announced loudly, in such a way that you could tell he had barely been holding it in.

The crowd around you broke into raucous congratulations, as Steve pulled you in close to his side.

The reactions ranged from cautious to satisfied based on how well each person knew you as a couple. Clint and Wanda looked a little surprised. Natasha had a knowing smile on her face, and Anna looked like the cat that ate the canary.

You and Steve broke apart as various well-wishers pulled you in opposite directions. Sam was clapping Steve roughly on the back, and kept repeating “My man, my man,” at him, as Helen pulled you aside to quietly tell you how happy she was for you.

Clint welcomed Steve into the “ranks of the permanently hitched,” while Anna went around spreading cheer, and generally taking credit for the whole thing.

“Well,” Tony broke out, “The Boyscout and Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes. I can think of worse matches. I'm sure you'll be very happy with each other. This calls for champagne.” He cast about looking for someone he could rope into fetching it.

“It's not even nine a.m., Tony,” Natasha deadpanned.

“What of it?” he paused hoping someone would take the bait. When no one did, he continued smoothly, “Rain-cheque it is, then.”

“Welcome to the team,” Sam told you, grasping your hand in his. “I look forward to getting to know you better.”

“Speaking of,” Tony said, “We'll have to get you set up here. There's some space near Helen's lab where we can build an extension, and I've been reading up on your recent publications. It's very interesting work that you're doing with microbes and chemical immutability. I can think of a dozen applications that would slot right in to our other research here.”

“Nice try, Tony. I’ve seen how you lure people onto your payroll every time there's a crisis. You’re not poaching me that easily. I’m not about to just abandon my department at Damage Control.”

“But just think how much easier things would be for you to work at the same location as Steve.”

“We'll make it work somehow. I’m not prepared to give up my lab, or just hand my department off to someone else.”

“Can't fault me for trying. What about a Damage Control satellite campus? The downtown facility's getting crowded anyhow. It wouldn't even be on the taxpayer dime. I’d roll it into renovations here. Think of it as a wedding gift.”

“No, Tony. It's too much. I’m not going to accept a whole new lab just because of who I'm sleeping with. Everything I've gotten in my career I've earned by my own merit. I'm not into handouts.”

“It's not just for you. Think of Steve. Take it from me, time spent commuting adds up quick. Do you know how guilty he's gonna feel for taking time out of the Avengers for you, and time away from you for Avengers work?”

He had found the right buttons to push. You’d trade off a lot to maintain your own independence, but Steve’s happiness was another matter.

“All right,” you conceded. “Let me write a grant proposal, and your foundation can decide if there's enough merit there to fund it. Just so long as you keep in mind that I don’t work for you.”

“Oh, most of my staff feel the same way; just ask Maria, or Selvig.”

“Or Pepper?” you asked, slyly.

“Err,” he blanched, “Maybe not Pepper. Please.”

You gave him a smug look, but left it at that. You'd let him get the last word on the subject, but overall you were very pleased with the arrangement. He was right, you _were_ running out of room for the exo-toxicology lab at the main Damage Control facility, vying for space as you were with the other departments. And it did make sense to have a branch close to the Avengers headquarters. After all, they sent so much work your way.

Conversations seemed to be winding down, and Steve glanced at the clock before addressing the whole group. “We'd like to keep it quiet until after the wedding. It shouldn't be long. Just as soon as my current medical situation is settled, we plan to elope. We can make a press announcement when we get back.”

“Don't worry about it, Cap,” Clint said, “We've got plenty of practice holding on to secrets.”

With that, it was time to go your separate ways. Anna and Helen started drifting off in the direction of the labs, while the rest of the crew headed towards the outside doors. You and Steve hung back to make your goodbyes.

“You know you're welcome to look in on our training. It can get pretty repetitive, but you might be interested in what we get up to day-to-day.”

“Thank you. I think I'm going to be all tied up in the lab for the next little while, but maybe sometime soon.”

He bent down to kiss you, and as your lips met, a whooping cheer went up from the group that hadn't quite dispersed after all. You and Steve drew back from the kiss, somewhat shyly, but he gave your hand a squeeze, and you answered his smile with one of your own, before you both moved on to your days.

* * *

Steve’s final medical procedures were scheduled for early the next morning. You had spent one last night together, tender and sweet, knowing that you wouldn't have another stretch of time alone together until the wedding. In the morning, you gave yourself permission to feel clingy. It was appropriate anyway, since you and Anna were supposed to stay close during the process, in case, for some unexpected reason, the radiation made a return. Tony wouldn't be immune to it anymore, but you and she hadn't been through the elimination regimen yet. Plus, since the process you had worked out in hopes of a cure would be administered over several hours, it gave you an excuse to keep Steve company for the duration. Not that you needed one.

You made your way to the lab. The quarantine room inside the lab had been set up as a medical bay, complete with hospital bed, dialysis and vital-monitoring machines, and all the other accoutrements of a modern hospital.

You held Steve’s hand as the nurse prepped him for the modified hemodialysis that you had planned to remove the contaminant that was flowing through his veins, mingled with his blood. First she administered the chelation agent that you had designed to bind up the contaminant, to make sure you got every last trace of it from his system. She gave it fifteen minutes for it to work through his system, mingling fully with his blood, before she started hooking up the cannulae to connect him to the dialysis machine.

You knew this was coming. Yet, though you were a biologist, you weren’t in medicine. You knew how dialysis worked. You thought you were prepared. But, seeing those huge needles go digging into the arm of someone who you had come to love was very different than knowing the theory of it. You quavered a bit, and looked away. Steve gave your hand a long squeeze, and you looked at his face instead.

“I’ll be fine. I’m an old pro at getting poked and prodded.”

Although he showed no outward sign, you _felt_ his nervousness. _This isn’t about me._ You rallied and put on a brave face. You squeezed his hand back.

“I thought you said you didn’t get sick anymore.”

“There’s always research. Dr. Kabalevsky’s always telling me why she needs more blood. The reasons change, but the needles stay the same.”

The nurse started up the machine, and you settled in for the four hours it would take for the hemodialysis to run its course.

You talked about everything. Your childhoods, your lives, your hopes for the future. You made some sketchy plans for what you'd get up to before the wedding. You'd head off to Wakanda a few weeks earlier than him, to make some arrangements. He'd stay behind, and take care of things from this end. You still hadn't told your family about him. That was waiting for the secrecy rating to drop a level. Not that you didn't trust your family, but if details got out before things were finally settled, it would put both of you in danger.

A few hours in, an assistant dropped off a DVD of The Wizard of Oz with a note scrawled in Tony's handwriting. “Do you understand this reference?”

Steve explained, “It's an old inside joke.”

You smiled as you recognised this small signal from Tony to let his friend know he was thinking of him. You put the movie on, and you started watching together.

Part way through the second act, Dr. Kabalevsky came in to supervise the nurse unhooking the dialysis machine. She sent a blood sample out to Dr. Cho in the lab next door, and started the IV drip of bioengineered stem cells.

“We’ve run some cultures, and these should replace the bone marrow modified by your exposure to the contaminant. You may feel some weakness and dizziness. That’s normal. And, we’re going to continue to monitor your vitals very closely. We’re going to let it infuse over the next couple hours. It’ll be easier on your body that way.”

Steve gave her a tight lipped nod in confirmation.

He didn’t feel much like talking, so you turned the movie back on, and watched quietly for a while.

As the final credits played, Steve started talking quietly.

“I first saw this in theatre during its original run. It cost me twenty-five cents. I knew should have saved that money for a new winter jacket, but I just wanted to have a bit of fun. I went with Bucky. We were so young then. We thought we carried the weight of the world on our shoulders, but we had no idea really. We’d known struggle. I understood struggle. But I hadn’t seen war. I didn't understand betrayal. Not then. Not yet.”

You were a bit alarmed at his small monologue. You’d never heard him so melancholic. You passed your eyes over his monitors. His heart rate was elevated and his blood pressure was dropping. Before you could do anything, alarms started to go off and the medical team rushed into the room.

There was a scramble to figure out what's going on, as Dr. Cho and Dr. Kabalevsky checked readouts and issued orders to nurses to hook up extra monitoring.

You pulled myself together. Inside, you were a roil of emotional distress, but you shoved it down and tried to act rationally, to stay out of the way and assist where you could.

“What is it? What have we missed?” Dr. Cho mused out loud. “We couldn't take Rogers' whole-system response into account during our in vitro trials. Check for anti-bodies and white blood cell count.” A nurse stepped in to take a blood sample, then rushed it out to the lab outside.

Suddenly, a new sound filled the atmosphere. It was the radiation sensors. Steve’s old cells must be emitting it as a swan song as the new ones took over. This would make things more difficult. The medical team, wearing lead aprons in anticipation of this potentiality, quickly finished their tasks and exited the room, leaving only you and Dr. Kabalevsky.

“Are you prepared to assist?” she asked.

You took a deep steadying breath. “Yes. Just tell me what to do.”

But before you could do anything, the steady blip of Steve’s heart monitor changed to a flat whine. He’d gone asystolic.

“We need the code cart in here!” Dr. Kabalevsky called out, knowing that there was a whole team listening just outside the room. “Start chest compressions. Now,” she commanded, as she moved to attach an oxygen mask to Steve’s pallid face.

You started CPR, standing on the chair next to the bed to get better leverage as you pushed down into his barrel of a chest.

“No! No. Stay with me Steve!” You’d only just found him. It was too soon. He couldn’t go. You wouldn’t let him. “Fight.” He was so good at fighting.

A lead-clad technician entered the room, bringing in the crash cart, and then swiftly leaving again. Anna left her place at Steve’s airway to pull out parcels and equipment from the cart. With Steve flat-lining, defibrillation would be no help, but she pulled out a syringe of epinephrine, and administered a dose into his IV, calling it out for the transcriber listening in on the other side of the glass.

As she returned to Steve’s airway, you glanced at the clock. Two minutes in. You knew that chances of recovery dropped to nil at fifteen minutes of CPR. _Brain death._ You had to fix him by then. You had to. You and Anna had your hands full, doing a full team’s worth of work with only two people. It was up to the people outside this room now. It was up to Tony and Dr. Cho. You prayed they were up to it.

You schooled yourself into some semblance of calmness. You needed to steady your compressions. With the radiation in the room, there was no one else to spell you out. But you swore you were going to keep pumping as long as there was still hope. You tried to quiet all the alarmed thoughts in your head, and just focused on keeping your rhythm steady, and your compressions the right depth.

A second lead-clad nurse entered the room, handing Dr. Kabalevsky a vial and exiting again. She read it briefly, “Tacrolimus. An immuno-suppressant,” out loud, presumably for your benefit.

Dr. Cho's voice came in from the other room “His immune system is fighting back. We think it may be interfering. 4 cc's of Tacrolimus should be enough to calm things down.”

Dr. Kabalevsky gave a brief nod and moved to administer the drug. _Is that going to be enough?_ you thought to yourself, as you continued CPR.

Your hopes perked up as a voice called in on the PA, but it was only the scribe letting Dr. Kabalevsky know it was time for the next dose of epinephrine. _That’s eight minutes down. Come on Helen._

As the initial rush of adrenaline started to clear out of your system, an oppressive sense of despair started to sink in. For the first time you started to admit to yourself that this might be when you lost him. _We’ve killed him,_ you thought. _We’ve killed Captain America._ _We should have done better. I should have been better. This is my fault._

You blinked back the tears that were clouding your vision and focused on your compressions again. You had one job in this: keep steady, keep pumping. Another three minutes passed. Another dose of epinephrine.

Another lead-clad tech brought in an IV bag and handed it to Dr. Kabalevsky. As she hung it, and connected it to Steve’s IV, your eye was caught by your own name printed on the bag, along with “PLASMA” in capital letters. You racked your brain for a mechanism that might explain their choice, but came up empty. _They’re grasping at straws._ You felt another bit of hope die within your breast.

Your skin began to prickle all over, and then you heard Tony come in over the PA, “We’re trying alpha radiation.”

You didn’t hear any triumph in his tone of voice, only the brusque tone that told you he was still in problem-solving mode, but your heart lurched with hope anyway. _Was that it? Have they done enough?_ But time ticked on, and there was no change.

At one point Dr. Kabalevsky asked, “Stop compressions for a second. Let’s check his rhythm.”

You did so, but it was the same desolate flat line. You picked up where you left off.

A melancholy quiet fell over the room, filled only with the soft whirr of machinery, the swish of Anna’s clothing as she moved about the room, re-seating the oxygen line or adjusting the flow on the IV, and your own heavy breathing as you continued compressions, your muscles protesting, your shoulders knotting up with tension at the awkward position. You were running out of things to try. You were running out of time.

Suddenly, Steve gave a huge gasping intake of air, throwing off your hands as his chest arched upward. For just an instant, time froze. And then the cardiac monitor started beeping steadily.

You paused, unsure of what to do next, but then the medical team flowed back into the room, the flurry of activity around Steve blocking him from your view. The radiation must have cleared. You watched the doctors make a series of minor adjustments to the lines going into Steve, checking the readouts of the various pieces of monitoring equipment. You picked up enough from the medical chatter to gather that the crisis had passed; that he was stable, although still unconscious.

They had things in hand; your role here was over. You were just an extra body in a room full of more qualified professionals. Now that you were no longer needed, your brain started to throw up all the emotions you had shoved down during the crisis. Feeling a freak out coming on, you slipped out of the room, side-stepped the lab commotion just outside, and snuck down a short, quiet hallway.

With that little bit of privacy, all of the panic that you had suppressed came rushing back at you. First the tears started, and then deep, wracking sobs. You knew things were fine, you knew he would be okay now. But, irrationally, your body was going to panic now anyway. You had been so afraid. Afraid he would die. Afraid you would lose him. Afraid it would be your fault. Your legs gave way, and you slid your back down the wall and rested your forehead on your knees, and just stopped thinking.

You heard Natasha approaching your spot in the hallway. “____?”

You rose and wiped tears off your cheeks, embarrassed to have lost your composure in front of the stoic Black Widow. But as you turned to her, you saw her own eyes were glistening. _He means so much to so many people. Who am I to monopolise his attention._

“He’s awake. He’s asking for you,” Natasha said gently.

You squared your shoulders. It wouldn’t do to fall apart now. Natasha reached out and gave your shoulder a squeeze of reassurance. You smiled back gratefully to her, then headed towards the medical bay.

You re-entered Steve’s room. When you left, it had still been a flurry of activity in the aftermath of a medical emergency. Now, it was a quiet space of recovery. You sat down gently in the chair next to the bed.

“Hey,” Steve said weakly, turning his head to look at you.

“Hey,” you choked out, catching back a sob.

You reached out to clasp his hand in yours, holding it tightly against your cheek. It was warm and dry.

“I thought you said no touching. Not that I’m complaining.”

You laughed, which didn’t manage to diminish your tears at all, only adding hiccoughs to the mix.

You climbed up in the bed beside him, conforming your body to his side, gingerly resting your elbow across his chest, holding his hand, tucking it tightly under your chin as you rested your head on his shoulder, his other arm wrapped around your back, snugging you in to him.

“I'm so sorry. We let you down. We almost killed you.”

“Nonsense, I'm just on the mend. I’m feeling more like myself already.”

“You were dead!”

“Nevermind that. I’ve been dead before and I’ll be dead again, but my time’s not up yet.”

“When I thought I’d lost you… when I thought you were gone…”

“Shhh,” he soothed you, reaching up to gently caress your hair, “I’m not going anywhere.”

You clung to him. Reassured by his quiet solid presence, you let yourself believe in your future together. You heard him let out a happy sigh, as he breathed in the scent of your hair. You were more determined than ever to stick by him forever. To claim him as yours, legally and to the universe, in defiance of anything that it might throw at you. You were stronger together, and you weren’t going to let anything tear you apart. _I love him._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wraps up the plotline. Thanks for bearing with me. 
> 
> The story will continue in "An Elopement to Wakanda"
> 
> Note to subscribers: this story is a series now, so you may want to switch your subscription over.


End file.
